


Hot Single Dads In Your Area

by Weevilo707



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background blupjeans - Freeform, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Mutual Pining, Single Parents, Slow Burn, angus has adhd, kravitz is angus's dad, taako is angus's new tutor, vague mentions of past taako/sazed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-27 03:25:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 38,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14416653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weevilo707/pseuds/Weevilo707
Summary: Taako needed some extra cash, and tutoring was a pretty low stress job that fit his schedule. It wasn't even hard, he just met with a kid a couple times a week and helped with their homework and whatever. It was a pretty good job, and the kid he landed with wasn't half bad. Taako didn't like kids, but he guessed Agnes or Angus or whatever was alright.He didn't plan on getting attached to the job though. Or to Angus.Or to Angus's really hot single dad.





	1. New Jobs In Your Area

Let it be known that Taako didn’t  _ like _ kids. He just happened to be pretty okay with them.

No, okay he wasn't even going to give himself that much. He didn’t know the first thing about how to deal with kids. He was pretty sure there were rules, but like fuck did he know any of them. He found that generally, if you asked them what the hell was up they would tell you. Despite that, for some reason people were always shocked when he knew how to solve the problems. Like fuck, he wasn’t even that good of a listener, kids just tended to be real blunt. If anything, he didn’t understand why people always had such a problem with kids.

But none of that meant he  _ liked _ kids. He liked them about as much as he liked most people, which suffice to say, wasn’t a whole lot.

Something he did like though was money, and having it in general.

And that was something that had been in pretty short supply for him lately. Like, he wasn’t struggling or anything (or at least, that’s what he told Lup and Barry whenever they’d get on his case being all concerned or what not) but things had been a little tight lately.

Maybe there were a couple factors influencing the number of jelly and nothing sandwiches he’d been eating lately. Some of them had nothing to do with money, but it was still definitely one of the leading ones. Not the only one, but it was up there for sure.

The main point of order for all of this was that income had been pretty tight for a while. Trying to get another part time job on top of the hours he was already working would be hell on earth though, but he needed  _ something _ to bring in some extra cash.

And Taako, even if he didn’t like kids never had any issues convincing people he was good with them. Sure, sometimes it was a little bit harder to convince them that he was qualified to actually tutor kids, but fuck it, he had a degree. No one could deny the fancy paper with his name on it. He could handle some ten year olds with multiplication tables or writing five paragraph essays or whatever it was they were teaching the youth these days.

Plus, it worked with his hours. Tutoring wasn’t a real structured thing, his availability was more of the deciding factor than the student’s. It wasn’t like the kids had another job or anything they had to get to after all. As long as he was good at least twice a week after school hours it could be squeezed in.

And hey, if it didn’t work out he could just stop. This was a tentative thing he was trying out to see if it was worth it for the extra cash.

Which he guessed he was about to find out. He was sitting in what was a little study room in the library. The school that had hired him was pretty fancy, but it seemed more like a closet than a functional room. The only things in there were a couple beat up, shitty chairs and a table with a million carvings on its surface. He’d been waiting here for about ten minutes now, which he knew wasn’t actually a super long amount of time. He was still starting to get the urge to fucking add to the carvings himself though, he was so bored.

Maybe whatever kid he was supposed to help wouldn’t show. He would hope for that, if he wasn’t unsure whether or not he’d still get paid for the time otherwise. Right now he only had one kid he was going to work with. Something about the fancy charter school here wanting kids to get good one on one attention and things like that, which Taako guessed was a valiant effort. He was mostly glad that it meant this would be pretty damn easy. He wouldn't be stuck doing the same damn work over and over again, at any rate.

He spent about fifteen minutes in total of waiting and tracing the crudely carved names in the table and biting on the end of his pencil. He was getting dangerously close to gnawing right through the thing when the door to the study room opened.

“Um, hello sir, sorry to disturb you. Are you Mr. Taako?” a kid asked, peaking in a bit nervously. He had these big glasses on and his clothes looked like a school uniform, even though Taako knew that uniforms weren’t required at this particular school. So he just  _ chose _ to dress like that. Or he had parents who fucking hated him or something.

“Sure am, and you must be Agnes? You’re pretty late kiddo,” he said, and once he confirmed who he was the kid rushed into the room. He looked like he was about ten or so, and his bookbag was a little too big for his frame.

“Um, it’s Angus, Angus McDonald, and I’m really sorry about that! I got lost trying to find this study room, and I ran into one of my teachers while I was looking and we ended up talking and I’m really sorry for being late sir,” he said, speaking pretty rapidly. Taako waved a hand dismissively as the kid started pulling a whole bunch of junk out of his backpack.

“Not a problem, this fucking library is pretty much a labyrinth. I can’t blame you there,” he said, and then flinched somewhat when he realized exactly what he’d said. “Uh, I mean, fricking, or um, darn library,” he tried to correct. It was a good thing he didn’t have like, a supervisor on him right now. The kid was trying to suppress some laughter as he finished getting out his supplies though.

“You can curse in front of me if you want to sir, I won’t tell anyone,” he said, and okay, that was good at least.

“You sure you’re not a nark kid? Positive you’re not gonna go nark on me?” he asked, mostly teasing. Kids did tend to eat it up sometimes hearing curses, so he doubted it would actually be an issue as long as no actual responsible adults overheard.

“Oh I promise! I’m no- I’m not a square,” he said, clearly trying to sound as confident as possible. It was kinda cute. Taako still wasn’t fucking ecstatic about this whole gig, but at least the kid he was stuck with didn’t seem completely horrible yet. Which, speaking of

“So, what do we got going here? I’ll be straight with you kid,” he had to physically hold himself back from adding ‘well, gay with you’ to that. “This is my first try at the whole tutoring thing, so there might be some stumbling around. Plus we lost a good chunk of the hour already, so we should probably get to the meat of this,” he said, and Angus nodded.

“Right, of course sir! Um, I’m not too sure where to start either I suppose. I uh, I have a book report I need to write, but I’m not sure if you’ve read the book or not. I have some math homework I guess we could do… and a history project, but that’s not due for a few more weeks,” he started listing off. Taako nodded, and that all seemed pretty fair game.

“Cool cool, we can totally get to all that stuff. Maybe not in the uuuh, 40ish minutes we’ve got left today, but we’ll get to it,” he said, trying to think of how best to approach this. “I guess, what’s due first? We can start on that,” he said, and Angus nodded, shuffling through the junk in his bookbag before pulling out a math book.

“The math homework is due tomorrow, the report isn’t until friday,” he explained, and that would work.

“Cool, math today then, and we’re meeting up again on Wednesday right? We can take care of the essay then,” he suggested, and Angus nodded.

“Sounds good sir!” he said, opening up the book and showing Taako the section he had homework on. It was definitely a bit more advanced than multiplication tables and long division, but even though Taako kind of sucked at math it wasn’t anything super out of his reach. It also didn’t seem to be too much of a problem for Angus either.

In fact, he seemed to pretty thoroughly understand it. He’d given Taako a quick run down of what he was supposed to do, and that checked out. Whenever he finished a problem Taako would go over it, checking for mistakes with the kid. Sure, there were a few spots here and there where he’d added in his head wrong or flipped around a couple numbers by mistake, but that was human error stuff. Otherwise, he seemed to understand what he needed to do pretty damn well.

Which honestly, wasn’t a shock to Taako. Like, he knew you couldn’t judge people based off of looks alone, but he also knew that looks told you a lot about a person. People dressed and acted the way they did for a reason, and sure that wasn’t everything about someone but it was still a good start a lot of the time.

And Angus? He looked like a fucking nerd, for sure.

“It’s been forever since I’ve been in elementary school, is this really the standard of what they’re teaching you kids now a days? It seems pretty advanced,” he said, after a good thirty minutes of quietly working with the kid on his homework. This was going a hell of a lot better than he thought it would. He only had like two more problems left, and so Taako figured it wouldn’t hurt to start wrapping up soon. They probably wouldn’t have enough time to start any meaningful work on that book report once they were done after all, since he’d come in late.

“Um, I’m actually in the middle school sir, but I can understand how you would make that mistake since there is an elementary school here too,” Angus said, and once again, Taako wasn’t shocked. He still lifted an eyebrow in question though.

“Really now? How old are you exactly? Like eight?” he guessed, and he knew he was low balling that estimate. From the slightly offended look on Angus’s face, it was definitely older than eight.

“I’m ten sir,” he said, and Taako shrugged, not caring much either way.

“Same difference. You must be pretty smart to already be in middle school,” he said, and Angus smiled proudly before nodding.

“I am, they let me skip a bunch of grades,” he said. He’d stopped working on the math homework at this point, although he wasn’t done yet. Taako pointed back at his paper, and Angus seemed to jolt, having forgotten about the homework for a moment before going back to it.

“Right, that’s what I figured,” Taako said, and yeah, it seemed like this was going to be pretty easy. At least for as long as he had Angus, the kid definitely didn’t seem like he actually needed a lot of help.

“So, if that’s the case, why a tutor? Not that I don’t mind the easy job but I’m just curious here,” he asked, and Angus finished up the last of the problems before answering.

“I mean, it just seemed like a good idea. They were offering them and I figured it wouldn’t hurt,” he said, and there was something there that felt like he wasn't telling the whole truth. Still, Taako guessed that made sense. Not to him, he never would’ve done something like that when he was in school, but looking at Angus he could see how he would think that.

“Ah, so you’re just a nerd trying to get even more ahead of the game here, huh?” he said, and Angus looked a little embarrassed as he closed his math textbook.

“I guess so,” he muttered, and Taako didn’t particularly feel bad about teasing the kid, but he figured he should probably lay off a bit right now. He was being payed to help the kid after all, not mess with him.

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with that. My best friend and sister are both huge nerds, I know how it is,” he said, and Angus laughed a little at that.

“But you’re not a nerd, are you sir?” he asked and Taako scoffed at the question.

“Of course not, do I look like one to you? Trick question, there is only one answer to that and it’s hell fucking no,” he said. Angus looked pretty amused and not all embarrassed anymore now, which was good. Taako didn’t want him going to people saying his tutor was mean or something like that. He couldn’t tell if he was the kind of kid who would do that or not yet.

“Um, are we going to work on anything else today sir?” he asked, and Taako shrugged.

“I mean, if you’ve got anything else we can do quick sure, but otherwise we’ve only got like ten minutes and I’m not sure if it’s worth it to start something only to have to put it away again right away,” he said. Angus seemed to think it over before nodding.

“That’s fair sir. I promise I’ll be here on time Wednesday and we can get more done then,” he said, and Taako waved him off.

“It’s your grades and shit kid, not mine. I’m fine either way,” he said.

“I suppose that’s fair sir,” Angus said, starting to pack his supplies back up. It was a little weird having someone call him ‘sir’ so much, Taako didn’t even think people did that sort of stuff anymore, let alone kids. He guessed this one was a big enough dork to though, but he wasn’t going to call him out on it. He’d already teased the kid enough, and he didn’t want to risk messing up this new gig yet. Especially since it seemed like it would be a lot easier than he thought it might be.

“So, I’ll see you Wednesday?” Angus asked, and Taako nodded.

“Sure thing. Same room, so you shouldn’t have trouble finding it this time,” he said. Angus slung his slightly too big book bag back over his shoulder once he was finished filling it up again.

“Alright, see you then sir! It was nice to meet you,” he said with a smile before rushing out of the room. As soon as he was gone Taako started packing up his own stuff, which was a lot less than what the kid had. He didn’t have too much of an idea about what he was supposed to bring, so he’d only had like, a notebook for scrap paper in case he needed to write and a calculator. Stuffing that shit back into his own bag, he grabbed his phone where he’d had it charging on silence in a corner.

He frowned when he saw the missed call on his screen from Lup. Of course she had to try to get in contact with him right when he’d been avoiding his phone. It wasn’t that he wasn’t chill to talk to his sister, he always was. It was just that he hadn’t told her or Barry about this new job yet. He’d been planning to try it out for a few weeks before mentioning it, in case it ended up being completely horrible and he had to quit. Didn’t want to end up getting anyone’s hopes up after all.

Taako didn’t go to call her back right away. Instead he made sure to leave the school first, giving a nod to the people still in the front office on his way out as a general ‘hey I was here and worked and you see me leaving at the normal time I’m supposed to leave’ thing.

Once he was outside he sighed, pulling his phone out of his pocket and hitting Lup’s number. It only rang twice before she picked up.

“What up, tell me no one died in the fucking forty five minutes I wasn’t hovering over my phone,” he said immediately. There was no reason why anyone would die, as far as he knew at least, but you could never be sure.

“No, no one died,” Lup said, sounding amused more than anything.

“Cool cool, so why didn’t you just text me then?” he asked, because that was the general go to with them. It was definitely weird that she’d called but didn’t leave any kind of text when he hadn’t answered after a bit.

“Because this is something pretty important, actually, despite the lack of death,” she said, and that had Taako’s attention. 

“Oh? Well fucking lay it on me, what’s up?” he asked, starting to walk back to his apartment. Thankfully it was a nice day, and his apartment wasn’t far for the days when it wasn’t. He’d been pretty damn lucky to get this school. He might’ve also been not jumping at the first job that came along, even though he probably should’ve. Shit worked out in the end though, so it wasn’t a big deal.

Hopefully whatever Lup had to talk about was important enough that she wouldn’t question what he’d been doing that he couldn’t answer her phone. They tended to be pretty alright with the whole privacy thing, but Lup and Barry had been kind of on his case lately. He guessed he could understand why, but he’d rather they lay off some. He was doing fine.

Maybe he hadn't been too fine for a while there, but he was fine now.

“So, I just realized that like, I have no fucking idea what to get Barry for our anniversary,” she said, and she sounded a lot more worried than Taako was used to hearing his sister. That wasn’t a surprise though, it was fucking ridiculous how into each other her and Barold were. Taako joked about it making him sick a lot, but he honestly was happy for the two of them. It was pretty nice, seeing the two most important people in his life all happy and shit.

So Lup being all nervous about getting a perfect anniversary gift seemed pretty par for the course. He wouldn’t have thought twice about this, if not for one thing.

“Lup?” he asked, doing a bit of mental checking to make sure he was right here.

“Yeah Koko?”

“I’m pretty damn sure your anniversary isn’t for another five goddamn months,” he said, letting his voice sound as unamused as possible.

“Well yeah, but I should start figuring this shit out now. The first anniversary is fucking important,” she insisted.

“Okay, I will give you that your first year being all in marital bliss is a pretty cool milestone, and it took you two dorks long enough to get there,” he said, although this whole thing was still pretty ridiculous.

“That being said, it’s not fucking ‘stop the presses! Gotta call Taako right fucking now, no time to send a text this is an emergency’ deal. Seriously, I was actually busy,” he added. He could hear Lup grumbling on the other side of the line, and he rolled his eyes even though she couldn’t see him. She could probably sense it, and that was the most important part.

“I might've gotten a little caught up in the realization okay, happy?” she said. Taako took his time hemming and hawing a bit dramatically.

“I  _ guess _ so,” he finally relented once he reached his door.

“So, what exactly were you busy with?” Lup asked suddenly, and Taako was glad she couldn’t see him flinch. She could probably sense it though, which was less satisfying than the eye roll.

“Oh you know,” he said flippantly, starting up to his shitty apartment. That was the wrong thing to say, because he could practically feel Lup getting suspicious on the other end.

“Nope, don’t know bro, that’s why I asked,” she said. Taako was debating in his head if he wanted to tell her yet or not. He’d been planning on waiting until he was sure about this job, but this had been a pretty good first day. Of course, that might just be because he was lucky with the kid he got.

He had no idea how long he’d stick with a kid for yet, but he doubted it would be too long. Angus didn’t seem like he actually needed a tutor after all, so who was to say in like two weeks he wouldn’t have new brat who would drive him up a fucking wall. Hell, there was no way to say that the kid he was working with  _ now  _ wouldn’t turn out to be insufferable. Good first impressions could always be wrong.

But he also knew Lup, and that she was going to find out eventually. It didn’t matter if he quit or not, she would be able to tell something was up. Especially with the way her and Barry had been kind of hovering over him ever since they got back from their honeymoon.

“Listen, it ain’t a big deal. Just started a new part time job today. Fuck, not even part time, like a quarter time job, if that,” he said, unlocking his apartment door and heading inside. He’d been living here for about half a year now, but there was still shit packed away in boxes and piled in corners. He told himself he’d get to them once he actually needed the shit that was inside. He hadn’t yet, so taking the things out would make an even bigger mess than there already was.

“Oh shit, seriously? What kind of job? I didn’t know you got another job,” Lup asked, and that was about what Taako had been expecting.

“Like I said, it’s barely a job. I just figured some extra spending cash wouldn’t hurt. I haven’t been able to go on a real good shopping spree in a fucking while and it’s a goddamn shame,” he said. He could hear Lup humming in agreement, and he knew she was aware it was more than a lack of shopping sprees, but she didn’t call him out on it. That was why he appreciated her so fucking much.

“But yeah, it’s just a little tutoring thing. Helping some tiny gremlins with their math homework or whatever a couple times a week. You know that fancy charter school a few blocks down from me? It’s there,” he explained.

“That’s great Taako!” Lup said, and she sounded genuinely happy about this. Taako wasn’t too surprised by that, he knew she was worried about him being all shut in and shit.

“Eh, today was the first day so let’s not get our hopes up yet, but it wasn’t horrible. The kid I’m stuck with seems alright, he didn’t even need my help really,” he said, shifting the phone on his shoulder some so that he could grab a shitty microwave dinner out of the freezer. Maybe it was a little early for dinner, but he didn’t have anything else to do for the rest of the night.

“Well, it sounds like a good gig, I’m proud of you bro,” she said, and Taako tried not to let himself get uncomfortable with the sincerity in her voice. Of course Lup was proud of him. No matter what disasters they got into they were always proud of each other.

“Like I said, we’ll see,” he said, not letting himself put too much stock in this whole thing yet despite that. Even if it ended up being a fine thing, it was still temporary at the end of the day. Sure, he was stuck at his dead end goddamn call center job for now, but he wouldn’t be there forever. Or at least he wasn’t planning on it. Once he got something nicer he could quit that and the tutoring thing.

“So, you were going on about not knowing what to do for an anniversary gift?” he asked, and maybe he was deflecting the slightest bit, but also there wasn’t much left to talk about on his end either.

“Right, and like I know it’s a long time from now but what if I want to like, plan a trip or something? That requires a lot of working in advance. Would something like that be too much though?” she asked, and Taako couldn’t help but be amused at how much of a fucking disaster his sister was. Like sure, he was a wreck too, but she was one in lots of fun other ways.

“I mean, that might not be the best option. If Barry decides to do a trip too you two could end up with conflicting schedules,” he said.

“Oh shit, fuck you’re right that would be a problem,” she said. Taako laughed at the fact that he should’ve been joking about that, but it was actually a very real concern with the two of them. “So not a trip, but uh, something,” she said, sounding like she had absolutely no ideas, and Taako guessed that was probably the case. That or she had too many ideas to the point where she couldn’t focus on one. Both were extremely likely.

“Well, the good news is you’ve got some time to figure it out,” he assured her, and Lup reluctantly agreed.

Taako spent the next hour or so on the phone with his sister, eating his shitty microwaved dinner while they spit-balled ideas for anniversary gifts. Most of the ones Taako suggested were shitty, mainly because it wasn’t anywhere close enough for him to feel the need to be serious about this.

It was nice though, and right before they hung up Lup told him again how proud she was of him for going out and getting the tutoring job on his own. He brushed her off, but he was smiling the slightest bit when he set the phone down.

Taako could admit that things had been kinda shitty for him lately. Like, they were getting better and all, but it was still a lot of bullshit he hadn’t wanted to deal with.

And this job was small and barely even counted as one and he didn’t even  _ like _ working with kids, but maybe it would be a step in the right direction.

Yeah, as reluctant as he was to hope for anything right now, he guessed this might actually be something good for him.

At the very least, it didn’t seem like it would be horrible, and that didn’t seem like too much to ask for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eeeey here we are again at the start of a new fic. I meant to hold off for a little while longer, but fuck it we're doing this. I needed to write something lighthearted and mostly happy, so here we are. I'm going to guess that this fic'll be around like, 20ish chapters? Watch me be horrible wrong, but it'll be fun to keep this here for future me to laugh at. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!


	2. New Routines In Your Area

Kravitz breathed a sigh of relief when he got to the school and saw that Angus wasn’t waiting outside yet. He wasn’t sure how long this new tutoring thing was going to go for, but he didn’t want to mess it up right away. The teacher he’d talked to said the sessions would last for about an hour, but he wasn’t sure if they’d end early since it was the first day or something like that. He’d been cutting it pretty close, but he managed to get there with a few minutes to spare.

As soon as he stopped in front of the school he saw Angus walking out the front door, and yeah, he'd been down to the wire there. He knew his son would understand if he was a few minutes late, but he’d rather not do that to him today.

Angus hadn’t said anything about it, but Kravitz had gotten the feeling that he wasn’t super thrilled with the whole tutoring arrangement. The least he could do was pick him up on time for his first day. Hopefully for more than the first day, but as it was Kravitz was trying to take this one day at a time.

“Hey dad, how was work?” Angus asked as he climbed into the car, taking his backpack off and setting it down by his feet before putting on his seatbelt. Kravitz waited until he was all settled in before starting the car up again to head back home. He didn’t seem particularly upset or anything, so that was a good sign. Or at least, he hoped it was.

“Good, I’m going to have to stop back there tonight while I grab dinner to drop off a few papers,” he said and Angus nodded. It wasn’t too unusual for him to have to run in at random intervals, but thankfully his office was close enough that it wasn’t too much of an issue most of the time.

“How was school?” Kravitz asked, not specifically bringing up the tutoring. If Angus didn’t want to talk about it right away he didn’t have to, but hopefully him being in a good mood meant he would.

“It was alright, we uh, we started a new section in history today,” he said. Kravitz nodded to show that he was listening as he drove, and the school was a little ways from their house, but it had been the best one Kravitz could find for Angus. “Um, the tutoring went well,” he added, and that was good to hear.

“Oh really? What did you go over?” he asked, trying to sound interested while also trying not to pry.

“We did my math homework,” Angus said.

“Oh, that’s good,” Kravitz said, and it wasn’t the most in depth explanation but it was enough. It really was good hearing that it didn’t seem to be a waste so far and that Angus didn’t seem to hate it or anything either.

Kravitz knew that homework had been one of the issues his teachers had brought up during the meetings they’d had. So his finishing his math homework was definitely an improvement. 

“Yeah, my tutor seems nice, he said this is his first time doing this program too,” Angus explained as they pulled up to their house. Kravitz nodded, climbing out of the car and grabbing the paperwork he’d need to bring back to the office in a few hours out of the back seat.

“That’s good, you can figure it out together,” Kravitz said, leading Angus inside. Honestly, he would of preferred someone who had a bit more experience, but he knew Angus could handle his own. If this person being new as well made him more comfortable, it was for the best. “Just make sure to tell anyone if you don’t think this is working out or you have any problems,” he added, and Angus nodded.

“I will, don’t worry Dad,” Angus said, sounding a little annoyed with the doting. He knew he told Angus those kinds of things all the time, but he wanted to be sure that he understood and didn’t feel like he couldn’t say if there was a problem.

Maybe he wouldn’t worry so much if there was someone else he could count on for Angus to be able to go to, but as it was it was just him. Well, there were his grandmas, but he still didn’t like the idea of Angus not wanting to come to him for a problem. The last thing he wanted was for his son to feel like he had nowhere to turn.

Angus was already starting to him room, and Kravitz was about to head to his office to get started on this paper work when he stopped.

“Oh, what do you want for dinner? I figured I’d grab something while I was taking this work back,” he asked. Angus stopped, seeming to think the question over for a moment.

“Um, McDonalds I guess?” he said, and he was a simple enough suggestion and it wasn’t like they didn’t eat there a lot. Still, he couldn’t help but be amused by the suggestion.

“You only pick that because of the name, don’t you?” he asked, and Angus shrugged before turning back to his room.

“Maybe,” he said, and Kravitz rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything about it. Instead he just made plans to stop by the McDonalds on the way back from work.

“Do you want the meal with the toy?” he called down the hall, a teasing tone to his voice because he already knew the answer.

“No dad! I’m not a baby,” Angus called back, sounding offended at the suggestion.

“Just checking,” he said. After a moment he heard the door to Angus’s room open and close and started over to his office.

Sitting down at his desk, Kravitz made sure to set an alarm on his phone for when he needed to head out. If he didn’t, he’d end up getting caught up in his work and forgetting he had somewhere to be. It happened a few times, with Angus coming into his study a few hours past when they should’ve had dinner and making sure he was okay. He’d gotten better at it, or well, at remembering to set alarms for himself at least, but time management still wasn’t a skill he had much of.

As he expected, by the time the alarm went off it barely felt like any time had passed at all, and he had missed how dark it was starting to get outside. Grabbing up the necessary paperwork, Kravitz quickly threw his coat back on to head out.

“I’m leaving now! I’ll be back with dinner in a bit!” he called towards Angus’s room once he was at the front door.

“Okay dad!” he heard Angus yell back after a moment, and once he knew Angus heard him he locked the door behind him and headed out.

There weren’t many people left at the office this late into the day. It used to be that Kravitz was one of the few people who stuck around this long, which he was trying to do less of. It was kind of hard though, especially now that he had to bargain to get off early on Mondays and Wednesdays now. Angus rode the bus home every other day, but with this new tutoring thing Kravitz had to be out in order to pick him up.

Sure, he knew his boss would let him have pretty much any schedule he asked for, especially if Angus was involved. He didn’t want to use his relationship with her unfairly though.

Besides, the whole tutoring situation was a good thing, even if it resulted in a little more driving around for him. According to the last parent/teacher conference Kravitz had gone to it was something Angus needed. He’d talked it over with Angus, and he had been insistent on trying out the tutoring program rather than the other option the teachers had suggested, which was moving him back a grade.

Kravitz hadn’t thought letting Angus skip fifth grade was a bad idea at the time. Both Angus and his teachers at the time had thought it was what would be best for him. Still, he seemed to be struggling a bit more than they anticipated, so a tutor it was. The running around was the least he could do since he couldn’t be there a lot of the time to help Angus himself.

“What are you doing back here? I thought you already left for the day?” one of his co-workers, a pleasant woman named Julia, asked as he came into the office she was in.

“I did, I’m just dropping off some paperwork I finished up at home,” he explained, ignoring her soft ‘tsk’ at him.

“Alright then, but I better not see you still here in five minutes. I know how long it takes to drop off papers, and honestly I’m giving you a lot of leeway there,” she said, and Kravitz rolled his eyes but nodded.

“I’m leaving, I can tell when I’m not wanted,” he joked. Work was pretty stressful a lot of the time, but he couldn’t say he didn’t like it and that he didn’t like his coworkers. Or most of them at least, some were a little bit more irritating, but they weren’t bad people. Sure, working at a pharma testing company wasn’t what he imagined doing with his life, but plans change. He couldn’t say he wasn’t happy, and he knew he wouldn’t change anything about this.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said as he walked past Julia again after dropping the papers off in the correct mail slot. The ride home wasn’t far, and he had the route to the nearest McDonalds between his work and home memorized.

“Angus, dinner!” he called once he was home, nudging the door closed while being careful not to drop the bag of food or drinks in his hands. After a moment he heard movement coming from Angus’s room, and then he was heading out and over to where Kravitz had dropped the bags on the kitchen counter.

“Are you all done with work stuff for the night?” Angus asked, grabbing his burger and one of the packs of fries.

“Yes, did you have any other homework besides the math you finished that you need to do?” Kravitz asked back. Angus shoved a couple fries into his mouth, and it was hard to tell if it was because he was hungry or if he was buying time to think of an answer.

“I have a book report due Friday, but Mr. Taako said we’d work on it together on Wednesday,” he said after a moment.

“Mr. Taako?” Kravitz asked, not recognizing the name. He knew it wasn’t any of Angus’s teachers. If someone asked him, he wouldn’t believe it was actually real.

“The tutor,” Angus explained, and Kravitz nodded. Still a strange name, but it made sense now.

“Alright, and you’ve read the book already right?” he asked, and Angus nodded quickly.

“Oh yeah, mostly. Enough of it,” he said, and that wasn’t the most convincing yes in the world. Kravitz figured he should tell Angus to finish reading the book tonight. “Can we practice some music after dinner?” Angus asked before he could say anything, and Kravitz almost sighed out loud.

“Sure, we haven’t gotten to do that in a while, have we?” he said. He wouldn’t say he was an especially indulgent parent, but he knew he didn’t get to spend that much time with Angus all things considered. Sure, Kravitz knew this was partially deflecting for him, but Angus had done a lot today from what he could tell. He could let him relax some for the evening. 

With that they ate dinner, and Angus told him in more detail bout how his school day had gone, and a little more about the new tutor he had. Which ended up not being much, but was pretty well summed up in that he seemed ‘fun’ and hadn’t been mad at Angus for being a few minutes late to their meeting.

After they finished eating Angus pulled out his keyboard and Kravitz grabbed one of the guitars from its stand and they played for a bit. Angus had only recently started to show an interest in music, and so Kravitz had pulled out a lot of his old instruments and had started to teach him. He was picking it up pretty well, and Kravitz was fairly certain he wasn’t being too biased because it was his kid. It hadn’t been hard for him to learn how to read music, and he still stumbled over his fingers and stuff sometimes. Those were all things that worked themselves out with more practice.

They’d had dinner pretty late though, and it was a school night, so after a bit Kravitz ushered him off to bed. Angus had protested enough to get a couple more songs out of him, but after a bit he relented and headed off to get ready to sleep.

Kravitz took the time to put the instruments away again while he did that, and it was kind of nice. He felt like he had absolutely no fucking idea what he was doing as a parent a vast majority of the time. Even though Angus was ten now and so he should have gotten a hang of it by this point. They’d been doing more things like this lately though, and maybe even if he wasn’t sure about what he was doing, he could feel like he wasn’t doing anything horrible.

The next day was their normal routine. Kravitz got Angus up, helped him get ready for school and then rushed out to get to work on time. Since he didn’t have the tutoring today Kravitz didn’t have to leave early, and so Angus was already home when he finally got back from work.

He was only home alone for a little over an hour, and it was something they only started last year. Kravitz still wasn’t sure if that was too young or not, but it had worked out so far. He’d made sure to get Angus a phone, even though he felt like he was definitely a little too young for that, so that he would have a way to contact him in case anything happened.

And Angus was a smart kid, a little too smart for his own good sometimes, but he’d done well with the little bit of time alone so far.

That night he made sure to tell Angus to finish reading the book he needed for his book report. Which he knew Angus loved to read, so that shouldn’t be a problem. He said he’d do it and get a start on his report so that he had something as a base for meeting up with the tutor tomorrow.

Maybe he should be trying to help more? Whenever he offered though Angus insisted he knew what he was doing, and he did too. It was pretty clear from that whenever Kravitz actually got the time to double checked his stuff or asked him questions about his work or anything like that.

Still, a lot of his work had started to go undone, and he wasn’t sure why that was but he was hoping the tutoring would help. Just having a dedicated time and place to do his work and not get distracted.

The next day had ended up being more of a hassle than Kravitz had anticipated. Much more of a hassle, actually. He knew that things would be a bit difficult as they adjusted to the new schedule, but he was still hoping things wouldn’t break bad quite so soon.

It started off not even all that bad. When he walked into work that morning Julia saw sitting at her desk, and instead of greeting him like she usually did she just sat scowling at some papers on her desk. Over the years Kravitz had started working more on the administrative side of things than the actual scientific testing. Julia was part of administration too, which was why he worked with her often. 

“Hey McDonald, does this look wrong to you?” she asked before he could get to his office. Kravitz headed over and looked at the papers she was going over, some detailed reports about their general profit and expenses and such. It didn’t seem strange at first, but after closer inspection something was definitely off.

“Yeah, that’s not right. Julia could you get me the full reports for this month?” he asked.

“You got it,” she said, already getting up to do just that. Kravitz had figured it had been a simple mistake and he would be able to find the problem pretty quickly. When he started going through it though, more and more seemed to be off and it became clear that it was starting to snowball.

By three o’clock Kravitz had a pile of all of the paperwork that had been submitted in the last three months on his desk. At this point he was trying to figure out if these errors were the result of some calculation malfunctions, or if they were intentional.

He hoped these were just some sort of error, or else someone was definitely going to lose their job over this. 

He hadn’t  _ meant _ to forget the time. He hadn’t set an alarm because he hadn’t expected something to so thoroughly distract him from when he was supposed to go home. He might’ve forgotten that the time he had to go home wasn’t the time he had gone home every other day for the past year too. He hadn’t glanced at the clock in at least a few hours when he heard a knock on the door to his office. He’d just been praying that it wasn’t some more files that had found to be faulty.

Instead, it had been his boss, and one look at her face could see the expression of slightly unsurprised disappointment.

“Oh Kravitz, you’re still here,” she said. Kravitz nodded, a little confused by that. She certainly knew him enough to know that him staying late wasn’t exactly a new thing.

“Yes, I was going through those uh, botched documents and trying to figure out exactly where they went wrong and how,” he explained, glancing down at his watch to double check the time. He was maybe supposed to leave like ten minutes ago, but considering everything that had gone down today this little bit of overtime wasn’t surprising in the slightest. He’d certainly stuck around for longer under less dire needs.

“Kravitz, didn’t you need to pick Angus up from tutoring today? I believe we changed your schedule so that you could do that,” she said, and Kravitz’s heart stopped. Of course she had remembered that when it’d completely slipped his mind.

“Wait, fuck,” he said, wincing afterwards because he did try to keep a professional appearance in front of his boss. Even if she was also his mom. That was something he liked to keep on the down low, so that he wouldn’t abuse any leniency. Quickly he scrambled back to his desk and started to pack away as much of this paperwork as he could justify taking home. “I’m so sorry, it completely slipped my mind.

“It’s fine Kravitz, you don’t have to apologize,” she said, and he finished packing up before rushing out. Angus’s tutoring was scheduled to end maybe fifteen minutes ago, but the school wasn’t that far from his work. He might’ve drove a bit more recklessly than he would under normal circumstances, but in the end he was only about twenty two minutes late.

Which could’ve been a lot worse if he hadn’t been reminded of the new schedule, but he still winced when he saw Angus sitting outside of the school.

And there was someone sitting with him.

As he pulled up they were sitting on a bench at the front of the school. Angus had a notebook out on his lap and looked like he was writing while the man that was with him talked. Jumping out of the car, the man noticed him first and well, he didn’t look all that happy.

Then Angus glanced up and saw him, and his face lit up and Kravitz felt even worse about forgetting the time.

“Hey dad! Did you get caught up at work?” Angus asked, closing his notebook and pulling out his backpack to start putting it away.

“Yes, I’m so sorry Angus. There was this big issue with something and we had to go through several months worth of files and I forgot about the new schedule,” he explained.

The man was still sitting on the bench, clearly looking him over with a very unimpressed look on his face. He didn’t  _ look _ like a teacher. His clothes were bright and seemed to only barely meet any sort of dress code requirements. His hair was tied back in a braid and he was wearing too much jewelry but somehow it all seemed to work on him.

Or maybe he was just like, really attractive. Not that it meant much to Kravitz one way or the other. Whatever it was, he didn’t seem particularly pleased.

“Um, who’s your friend?” Kravitz asked Angus, although he already had a pretty good guess on who exactly this was.

“Oh! Right, this is my tutor Mr. Taako, he was helping me with some things while we waited for you,” Angus explained and yep. That was exactly what Kravitz had figured. Yeah, this wasn’t the first impression he’d been hoping for.

“Hello, I’m Angus’s father. Thank you so much for staying with him, I promise this isn’t going to be a habit. It’s been a, ah, a long day,” he said, trying to seem a bit more put together than he probably looked getting here. ‘Mr. Taako’ stared at him for a moment before smiling brightly.

“Not even a problem my dude! Ango and I had a blast,” he said, all casual and easy pretty much out of nowhere. And well, Kravitz had seen fake customer service smiles before, he could tell that Taako still wasn’t exactly his biggest fan.

“Well, thank you anyway. You ready to head home Angus?” he asked, and Angus nodded, slinging his bookbag onto his back.

“Yep, see you next week Mr. Taako,” he said, and Taako’s smile looked a bit more genuine at that.

“See you then pumpkin, make sure to finish that essay,” he said, picking up his own stuff to head off to his car or something.

“I will,” Angus said before turning fully to get into the car.

“Sorry again for being late,” Kravitz said once the door was shut. Angus didn’t seem bothered by it, but it still wasn’t something Kravitz was proud of.

“It’s fine, it wasn’t that long and Mr. Taako hung out with me so I wasn’t bored,” he said. Kravitz nodded, driving much safer than he was when coming over here.

“That was nice of him,” he said, although he figured it might’ve been some policy not to leave the children alone until their parents got there. It would explain the very annoyed expression the tutor had been shooting him. Kravitz figured he would like to go home and get on with the rest of his day.

“Yeah, I told him he didn’t need to but he said it wasn’t a problem and had me get my essay back out,” Angus explained.

“Well, hopefully this won’t happen again anytime soon. At least I’ll give you a heads up next time I might have to stay over for a bit,” Kravitz told him. He’d been caught pretty off guard this time, but the last thing he wanted was for Angus to think he made a habit of forgetting about him.

“A heads up might be a good idea. Is everything okay at work?” Angus asked. Kravitz couldn’t quite tell if he was worried and trying to hide it or if he was just curious when he asked about his work. He figured Angus could tell how harried he’d been when he got there, as much as he was trying to hide it, so he would be able to see that something was off for sure.

“Everything’s fine. There were some errors in our books dating back for a couple of months, and it’s hard to tell if they were a computer error or intentional or not,” he explained. It was a pretty big deal, and the fact that they’d gone this long without noticing anything was bad. Still, Kravitz was fairly certain it wasn’t something he in particular would lose his job over. If this was intentional then someone would for sure, but the issue was just that he needed to figure out who that was.

“Oh alright, will you have to stay late tomorrow?” Angus asked, and Kravitz felt a little bad about having to nod.

“Probably for most of the weekend until I can get this cleared up. Would you want to stay home or go visit your grandmas?” he asked.

“I could go to grandma’s,” Angus said, and that was a bit of a relief. It definitely felt better than leaving him at home alone pretty much all weekend.

“Alright, I’ll let them know and drop you off early Saturday before I head in if that’s alright,” he said, and Angus nodded. Kravitz knew his mother wouldn’t actually be there, since she’d be dealing with the same issues he was, but Angus got along with his stepmother wonderfully. It was probably because he spent a lot of time with her, especially when he was younger and Kravitz was struggling even more to balance the whole single father thing.

Pulling up to the house, Kravitz made sure to grab all the files he’d throw rather haphazardly into the back seat before heading into the house with Angus. He’d have to spend a lot of time tonight going through them. The sooner he could figure this all out the sooner it would be behind them and his schedule wouldn’t be so hectic.

“Is pizza good for dinner? There’s a frozen one in the fridge I think we can have,” he asked, and Angus nodded.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” he said. Kravitz pulled out his phone to put a reminder on it right then before he forgot.

“Oh, how did the tutoring go? Did you finish your essay?” Kravitz asked, realizing he hadn’t actually asked Angus much about his day yet.

“It was good, we finished most of it, I just have to do the conclusion and edit it,” he said, and that sounded good. It seemed like he was actually getting work done with the tutor, which was a relief.

“Alright, make sure to finish that tonight,” he said, and Angus nodded.

“I will,” he said before turning to head back to his room. With that Kravitz headed over to his office, dropping the large stack of papers down on it before slumping into a chair. Before getting started, he pulled his phone out and sent a quick text to his stepmother asking if it was alright if Angus stayed over for the weekend. He’d barely put the phone down again when he got a message back saying ‘of course.’

Sighing in relief, Kravitz sent back a quick thank you before putting his phone away. He’d explain what was going on, but he was sure his mom would once she got home tonight. Starting on the paperwork, it was a lot, but right now he wanted to get through it as soon as possible.

It was easy to lose himself in the numbers and structure of it all. Even with the way it was knocking off his schedule like it was, it somehow felt like it was a part of the routine.

His life had been a routine for a very long time now, and he couldn’t complain about that. He liked the dependability of it.

If he could keep everything running predictably, then maybe he wasn’t doing too bad of a job as a parent after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey i'm no longer dying and can post a chapter! I'm really glad everyone seems excited for this fic so far, because I am too. Something that brings me job to no end is kravitz's full name being 'Kravitz McDonald.' It's just so silly. I wanted to use this chapter to just kind of set up the relationship kravitz and angus have and their whole living routine. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!


	3. New Problems In Your Area

Angus was only slightly disappointed when he walked out of the school after his second tutoring session and saw that his dad wasn’t there yet. It wasn’t a big deal or too surprising, but it did mean he might have to wait a while. His dad would get home at his normal time and realize Angus wasn't there in about an hour or so. He figured something like this might happen at first. His dad was kind of bad at adjusting to new schedules.

Without any fuss he sat down on a bench outside the front of the school to wait for a bit. It was always possible that he was on his way and was running late. If he wasn’t here by the time he normally got off work then Angus would call to remind him.

He’d left the school before his tutor had, and after a few minutes he saw Mr. Taako walking out the front doors as well. He didn’t expect him to say or do anything besides maybe nod to acknowledge his presence or say goodbye again.

As soon as Taako caught sight of him though he stopped walking, taking a quick glance around the area. When he didn’t see whatever he must’ve been looking for he headed straight over to him.

“Hey there Ango, expected you to be long gone by now,” he said, and Angus shrugged. They hadn’t run over late or anything but he guessed it wasn’t early either. This was only their second time meeting up, but it felt rather productive. Angus only had a little bit of his essay left to do, and he kept telling himself that he would finish it as soon as he got home.

“Hello sir! I think my dad is just running a bit late is all,” Angus said, expecting that to be the end of it. He was sure Mr. Taako had his own things to get to after all.

“That happen a lot?” Taako asked, and he was speaking in a way that was meant to be casual, but Angus could hear the curiosity behind it. He wasn’t sure why it was important to Taako, but he didn’t see any harm in answering.

“I don’t do a lot of extracurriculars where he needs to pick me up, so not really. He gets busy at work a lot though I guess,” he explained.

“What about your mom?” Taako asked, and he was sort of expecting that question. It tended to come a lot when adults who didn’t know him very well yet asked about his parents.

“It’s just me and my dad, I never had one,” he explained, and Taako nodded. There seemed to be a moment's hesitation on his face, like he wasn't sure what to do, but after a moment Taako came and sat down on the bench with Angus. He didn’t seem like the comforting type, and it was even more awkward since this wasn’t something he particularly needed comforting with.

“Fucking same hat kid, although I guess you’ve still got me beaten by like fifty percent on the whole parent front,” was all Taako said though, and that was a little unexpected. Normally when he told people that it got kind of awkward because they’d go all falling over themselves to apologize and things like that. He liked Taako’s method a lot better.

“So similar hats then? The same style hats but different colors?” Angus joked. It got a little huff of laughter out of Taako, which wasn’t something that had happened very much yet. Angus counted it as a win. He wanted Taako to like him, well because he wanted all of his teachers to like him. Taako seemed a bit more fun than most of them though.

“Yeah sure, that works,” he said, stretching his arms up above him as he got a bit more comfortable on the bench. “So, if you’re stuck here for a while why don’t you pull your essay back out. Maybe we can finish it before your pops shows up,”  Taako added. Angus nodded, quickly pulling the paper out. If he did finish it now that meant he wouldn’t have to worry about it later.

They didn’t quite manage to finish the essay by the time his dad showed up. It wasn’t as late as it could have been, but he got the distinct impression that Mr. Taako was kind of annoyed with his dad over the whole thing. He asked a few more questions about how often his dad was around in between helping with his paper, and Angus told him the truth. He was around a lot, as much as he could be, but he was really busy with his job too. Being a single parent is hard and Angus tries to help out where he can. It wasn’t a big deal.

Maybe aako was just annoyed at having to stay over though. Angus had told him several times that he didn’t have to wait with him or anything like that, but Taako insisted the whole time that it wasn’t an issue.

It turned out there was a good reason for his dad to be late. Something pretty major was wrong at work and he’d have to go in a bit more for the next couple of days or however long it took for it all to get sorted out. Angus could tell that it was something kind of serious, because his dad was bad at hiding when he's stressed out about something. He tried, but it was clear that his mind was occupied with these form errors.

So Angus agreed to go to his grandmas over the weekend and went up to his room. He promised Mr. Taako he’d finish up this essay first thing. So even though he was tempted to put it off and say that he had plenty of time and could finish it up after dinner he forced himself start working on it.

It didn’t matter if it wasn’t perfect, he just needed to get a conclusion down and then he would be able to do other things. He didn't even need to look at the rest of the essay again. He could get it done real quick and stop  _ stressing _ about it. 

Despite his attempts to tell himself he could put down a haphazard conclusion and it’d still be good enough to earn him a decent grade, especially when combined with the rest of the essay, Angus still found himself trying to make it perfect.

Which took longer than he would have liked. A conclusion that should have taken him like fifteen minutes to write started to stretch well into an hour. Angus hadn’t expected the tutor to help that much but he found himself wishing he was here. Maybe it would be better if he had someone there who he could have double check and tell him it was fine so that he could stop  _ second guessing _ everything. He just needed it done, but he needed it to be perfect so that people thought he was smart enough to handle this workload.

He was erasing a couple of sentences (why did they have to insist on paper essays? If he was allowed to type them at least he could backspace without messing up the paper and show how much he’d gone back and changed) his paper ripped, and it felt almost cliche in its disaster. He hadn’t even been erasing angrily, he’d just already done it so much the paper had gotten weak.

His first instinct was to ball up the ruined essay and throw it away. He was halfway through doing just that when he stopped himself, unfurling the wrinkled paper and sighing heavily.

He’d take a break until dinner to calm down, and then he’d transcribe everything he had onto a fresh piece of paper. It would be fine and he’d still have it done in time. He just needed a break so that he didn’t give up like he had with so many other assignments now. It was so stupid. He didn't know why he couldn't finish things like he used to. At least he was trying his best not to give up in frustration this time.

He guessed part of the reason for that was he didn’t want to throw away all the work that Mr. Taako had put into helping him with the majority of the essay. He could believe that part at least was good enough.

Dad seemed pretty distracted during dinner, so Angus was able to avoid letting out that anything was wrong. Yep, he’d been working on his essay, it was pretty much finished now. He just had to read it over to make sure there wasn’t any mistakes. That was a lie, but his dad believed it well enough.

Angus really did try to get it done. When he went to copy it over to a new piece of paper after dinner though he kept finding mistakes and things he was sure he could do better. Taako had approved those parts but it still didn’t feel good enough. 

The next day he didn’t have anything to hand in, and at least his teacher didn’t call him out on it in front of everyone. It seemed like she had realized at that point that it wasn’t exactly going to help with anything.

It was Friday though, so once he was out of school he was able to push away thoughts of the failed and crumpled up essay at the bottom of his bookbag. When his dad asked him how school was he told him it was fine, talked about his other classes and quickly asked his dad if the situation at his work had improved. He’d sighed heavily, drumming fingers on the dinner table nervously.

“I think there’s been some progress, but everything we’ve found so far makes the whole thing look worse. It seems way too severe and deliberate to be some sort of computer error, so we might have to start looking into individual employees,” he explained. Angus nodded, and even though it was stressing his dad out he couldn’t help but be interested in the whole thing.

“Do you have any idea who might’ve done it? What exactly did they do anyway? It’s a money thing right?” Angus asked, and his dad shrugged.

“Right now I don’t want to put any sort of blame on anyone, other than it had to be someone with pretty unfiltered access to our files,” he said, taking a moment to eat some of the take out they’d gotten for dinner before continuing. “And yes, it’s a money thing. It’s looking like a very complicated form of embezzlement if I had to guess.”

“Maybe you can let me come to work with you and I can help you figure out the culprit,” Angus said. He was only somewhat joking in his suggestion. He loved solving mysteries and he was pretty good at figuring them out if he did say so himself. He doubted there were a lot of people with unfiltered access to most of their files too, it probably wouldn’t even be that hard to crack.

“You can ask your grandma this weekend,” his dad said, and it was clear that he meant it as a joke. Even still, Angus had full intent to ask when he saw her.

The next morning his dad woke him up early, and it was a little bit later than he would’ve had to for school but it still wasn’t very fun for a weekend. Angus sleepily got dressed, shoved some stuff rather indiscriminately into a duffel bag so he would have things to do and got into the car. At some point he guessed his dad had given him a poptart, and he managed to eat about half of it before crashing again.

The ride to his grandmas house wasn’t far though, and Angus groaned when he was woken up by his dad lifting him out of the passenger seat of the car.

“’M wake,” he mumbled, not actually making any moves to climb out of his dad’s arms or anything.

“Mhmm,” he heard his dad hum, and it didn’t seem like he believed him but Angus was too tired to argue. He felt him take something out of his hand, and he guessed he'd still been holding that poptart from before. Then Angus felt them walking and he heard his dad and grandma talking some, but he wasn’t paying much attention. He must've fallen asleep again at some point, because some time later he woke up in the guest bedroom. Well, it was a guest bedroom in name, in function it was pretty much Angus’s second bedroom.

Crawling out of bed he left the bedroom and headed downstairs. If he had to guess his dad probably carried him up here before leaving so that his grandma wouldn’t have to.

She was awake when he got down to the living room, and it wasn’t much of a surprise considering the clock on the TV said it was a little after 10am.

“Morning Mummum Issy,” he said, and it wasn’t the first time he wondered if he was getting too old to be calling her that. It was a way to distinguish his two grandmas though, and he was pretty sure Grandma Raven had insisted on the Issy nickname when he was too young to even remember. As much as it felt kind of childish he was worried about hurting anyone’s feelings if he stopped.

“Good morning dear, did you sleep well?” she asked, and Angus nodded.

“Yeah, thanks for letting me stay the weekend,” he said, even though he knew she didn’t mind him being around. It was just the polite thing to do after all.

“It’s not a problem at all dear,” she said, getting up from her chair. Angus followed her into the kitchen, where she’d already had some muffins cooked for breakfast. They ate and she asked him how things have been lately and he told her about school and such. He might’ve glossed over the tutoring thing a little, but he knew she already had a vague idea about it and he didn’t want anymore to worry. This was only a temporary problem, he was sure of it.

Weekends at his grandmas’ house were always really relaxing. Angus knew his dad felt bad when he’d have to leave him there because he couldn’t be around, but he didn’t mind at all. Lately it had been kind of a nice distraction whenever he’d get to come over. He knew that avoiding his problems was part of the problem here, but he didn’t know how to fix it on his own yet.

As soon as he had that squared away, it would be fine. He was getting better too, probably. He almost managed to hand in that essay. Maybe if he could finish most of his things in tutoring it would be better.

This weekend went about as nice as his usual stays here. He relaxed with mummum Issy most of the time. They played a few games and read a lot. One of the things he liked about staying here was that no one treated him like he was just a little kid. His dad and Grandma Raven were out pretty much the whole weekend, so he didn’t get to see either of them much. That was pretty expected though, considering everything that was going on at work.

They had dinner together Sunday when his dad came home to pick him up though, and he was pretty sure mummum Issy insisted on it. It was mostly his dad and grandma Raven talking bout everything that was going on at work and filling them in on the progress they manged to make over the weekend. It sounded like they had managed to make progress, at any rate.

“Oh, Grandma Raven, dad said to ask you if I could help with the investigation,” Angus said in between mouthfuls of food. He was very aware of the fact that he probably wouldn’t be allowed to help, but it didn’t hurt to ask.

“Well, we could certainly use some extra help,” she said, like she was actually thinking it over. His dad gave her a look after a moment though and Angus had to resist the urge to pout at him for that. “Perhaps when you’re a bit older, if you’re still interested in working with your family then,” she added. That was about the answer Angus expected.

“Fine,” he relented. He figured they almost had it all figured out anyway, so there wouldn’t be much left for him to do at this point.

The rest of the dinner was filled with casual conversation. It was nice, and almost completely distracted Angus from the fact that he’d have to go back to school the next day.

Of course, time still moved and he found himself back at school in what felt like no time at all. Which really, wasn’t so bad. His teachers seemed like they weren’t going to try to pressure him much while the tutoring was still new. They were probably trying to see if it was working or not without them doing anything.

Angus was starting to think that he’d be off the hook for getting in trouble about that essay (at least, until his grades came out). Those hopes were dashed the next time he walked into tutoring. Taako didn’t say anything about it right away, which only made Angus think more that maybe he didn’t know. He had no idea how closely his teachers were talking to Mr. Taako after all. They might not be telling him everything he handed in or not.

As he sat down Taako asked what they had to work on, and Angus explained the homework he had for the night. There weren’t any big projects he had to worry about at the moment, now that the essay was 'done.' Taako had sat and nodded as he listened to Angus explain what he had.

“Cool, cool,” he said, not sounding too interested. Angus couldn’t blame him for that though, none of his homework was particularly thrilling. “So, I heard you forgot to turn in that essay we worked on,” he added as Angus was pulling out his math textbook. He almost ended up dropping it, flinching in guilt.

“Um, yeah. I accidentally left it on my desk at home,” he lied. Taako nodded, and he didn’t seem mad or anything. That was one thing that was nice that Angus noticed, Taako didn’t seem like the type to get upset at him making mistakes. Of course Angus had only met him a few times so he could be wrong, but he felt like he was a pretty good judge of character.

“I know how that is, you make sure to turn it in today? You know even if your teachers try and be sticklers about late work, they’ll usually accept it for some credit, which is a hell of a lot better than none,” Taako said. Angus knew he was right about that too, most of his teachers had explained to him that they were very willing to accept his work late. Sometimes they were even willing to give him full credit if he made sure to get it in fast.

Of course, the issue was that he hadn’t just forgotten his essay on his desk.

He must’ve been quiet for too long, because Mr. Taako was looking at him kind of suspiciously now.

“Oh, yeah no I for sure handed it in today,” he lied again. He didn’t particularly like lying, at least if it wasn’t for a good reason. He was pretty good at it, but he felt bad when he was just doing it to keep himself out of trouble.

“Okay, sounds good,” Taako said, apparently not going to press him on this. Angus didn’t say anything else about it either, because if he did Taako would figure out that he’d been lying about turning it in. Hopefully he wouldn’t find out anyway, but Angus couldn’t be certain about that. His teachers might ask him if they'd worked on it some more, but he'd deal with that possibility if it came up.

Maybe he could dig the crumpled up essay out of his backpack tonight and finish it up anyway. His teacher would still accept it after all, and he should hand it in anyway. He didn’t want to look at it or think about it anymore though. That wasn’t going to fix the problem any, but maybe if he pretended it wasn’t there long enough everyone else would forget too.

The rest of the tutoring session went well, and this time he actually managed to finish up his homework for tonight. He didn’t have a lot, since it was the beginning of the week.

When he started packing up Mr. Taako did too, seeming to move a little bit faster than he did the last couple of times.

“I’ll head out with you alright? In case your pops ain’t here yet again,” he offered, surprising Angus somewhat. Maybe not leaving him alone really was against regulations or something.

“You don’t have to sir, but thank you,” he said, not going to question him about it. If it wasn’t something the school was making him do, it was an awfully nice gesture. Angus had no problem waiting by himself, but it didn’t hurt having someone else around.

Luckily when they got outside his dad’s car was already waiting out front. Angus was pretty sure he still felt bad about forgetting about the new time on Thursday and having to leave him at his grandma’s all weekend. He’d said at dinner last night though that they were starting to make some progress on all of this mess, so maybe he was less busy on top of everything else as well. Angus kind of hoped so. As much as he didn’t mind when his dad had to go off and do his own thing it was nice when he could be around too.

“Oh, my dad’s already here. I’ll see you again on Thursday Mr. Taako,” Angus said, and his tutor nodded. He seemed kind of relieved at seeing his dad there, and Angus guessed he hadn’t wanted to waste his whole afternoon waiting again. Which he really couldn’t blame him for.

“Mhmm, see you then kiddo,” Taako said, starting away as Angus went to his dad’s car.

“Hey, how was school?” his dad asked as he climbed into the car. He was sort of looking past him as he spoke. When he glanced in the direction he was looking Angus managed to catch sight of his tutor turning down the next street before disappearing behind a building. He was probably worried that he’d had to stay with Angus afterwards again.

“It was good. I managed to finish all my homework with Mr. Taako this time,” he said, and his dad smiled as he started the car.

“That’s good. I might actually have some free time tonight, so maybe we should do something,” he said, and Angus found himself a bit excited at the prospect.

“Do you have free time tonight, or is Grandma Raven forcing you to take a break?” he pressed, and his dad sighed in a way that let Angus know he was right on the money with that one.

“I suppose it’s a little bit of both,” he admitted. That wasn’t very surprising, but Angus wasn’t going to complain. His dad definitely needed to be told to take a break from his work every now and then. Whatever worked after all.

“That sounds good dad,” Angus said, looking out the window as they made their way back home. Spending the night with his dad and not worrying about dumb school problems really did sound good after all.

He knew he couldn’t avoid those problems forever, but one more night of avoidance wouldn’t hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooooh boy, been a while since we've had an update here, huh. sorry about that, this chapter, ironically enough had me suffering from some major writer's block/perfectionism. what is projecting onto angus i have no idea what you're talking about. hopefully i can start updating this fic again more frequently and won't go on anymore multi-month long breaks.
> 
> as always, thanks for reading and i hope you enjoy~


	4. Chance Encounters In Your Area

Taako was pretty sure there was something up with Angus. Like, he knew what a kid lying looked like, he  _ was  _ a kid lying for the better part of his life. So when Angus insisted that he for sure handed in his essay, there was no way Taako actually believed a word he was saying.

But the thing was, Taako didn’t know how involved he was supposed to get with this. He helped Angus with most of the essay, he knew the kid didn’t have much left by the time he went home. It shouldn’t have been an issue, and like, Taako was doing his job. He was just supposed to help kids with their work, it wasn’t his responsibility if they turned it in or not.

Of course, there was no way to prove he was doing his job if Angus didn’t turn in his work, so they were kind of at an impasse here.

So that day before he left he managed to run into Angus’s English teacher again, a casual thing and he definitely hadn’t been on the lookout for her. Still, he double checked and of course, he was right in thinking that the kid had been lying. He didn’t tell her that he’d lied, Taako wasn’t gonna be a dick like that. He just kept it in the back of his mind until his next tutoring session with the kid.

“Good afternoon sir!” Angus said happily when he came into tutoring on Friday. He was supposed to turn the essay in on Monday if Taako remembered right. He only saw Angus a couple times a week though, so it wasn’t his fault for not getting around to it until now.

“Sup kiddo,” Taako said as Angus sat down and started getting out whatever homework he had for today. “Hey, before we get to all that can we talk a minute?” he asked. He didn’t know how he was supposed to approach this, so blunt and straightforward was probably how he was gonna do it.

“Um, of course sir. Is something wrong?” Angus asked, clearly trying not to look nervous.

“Well, that’s what I was gonna ask. I ran into your English teach again, and she said she still hasn’t seen hide nor hair of that essay, or like, something along those lines,” Taako said and yep, there’s that flash of guilt across the kid’s face.

“Oh, um, I’m sure she must’ve just misplaced it or something. She’s a very busy lady and I didn’t give it to her with the rest of them, I can write it again and hand it in on Monday,” Angus stuttered out. The fact that he was trying to double down on the lie wasn’t a good sign.

“Hey, lemme get some shit out in the open, okay? I’m not mad at you for not handing in the paper, it’s your grade not mine, remember?” Taako said, and reluctantly Angus nodded. “I just want to know why you didn’t turn it in, you didn’t have much left to finish.”

“I just forgot sir. I promise I’ll bring it in on Monday,” Angus said, not meeting his eyes and picking at the edge of a notebook in his hands. Taako couldn't tell how much of the truth that was, but if that's what Angus said he'd believe him until something else came up.

“You know, if memories an issue they’ve got like, things you can do for that. Do you got a phone little man?” Taako asked. He definitely wasn’t qualified to see if the kid was suffering from ADD or whatever, but he could at least help him set some reminders and ask if he could get tested or something. Really, Taako had no idea how that stuff worked. He barely qualified as a school employee. He barely qualified as an employee at all.

“Oh, yes,” Angus said, quickly searching around in his pockets before pulling out a phone and turning it on. Taako couldn’t help but let out a snort like that, of course this kid kept his phone completely off when he was at school instead of on silent. Goody-two-shoes.

“Cool, cool so there should be a thing in the calender. When you need to remember like, bring in essay on Monday, you can put down a reminder Sunday night to put your essay in your backpack,” Taako explained. As he did he showed Angus the steps once the phone was fully on.

“Oh yeah, my dad has to do stuff like that all the time or else he forgets to eat or other things that people really shouldn’t forget to do,” Angus said, and Taako let out a little laugh at that.

“Does he? Yeah maybe it’s a family thing then. So did his alarm not go off that time he was late or what?” Taako asked. He probably had no business prying into his family stuff, but hey, he figured it wouldn’t hurt to check. If Angus was being fucking neglected or something that would definitely affect his grades and shit.

“That? There’d been an emergency at his work that day and yeah, he forgot about the new schedule,” Angus explained. With okay, Taako couldn’t blame him too much for that he guessed. Taako hadn’t really kept a schedule in a while, but when he needed to he’d never been particularly good at it either.

“So um, I’ve got some social studies homework today,” Angus aid, and right, the actual tutoring shit.

“Well, let’s get on it then, show me what you got,” Taako said, and with that Angus finished pulling out his homework. It wasn’t hard, and this was the first time Angus had brought in homework from that class so it probably wasn’t one he was struggling with much.

They managed to finish it by the name their session came to an end. According to Angus the only other homework he had was some readings to do over the weekend and a test in math to study for. Taako had almost blurted out ‘so no homework at all then’ and it was probably a good thing that he stopped himself at the last minute. He tended to skip the readings, or at least he definitely had before highschool. And through most of highschool. And a lot of college. However much he might’ve ignored those kind of things, that wasn’t something he should encourage to a kid he was tutoring.

When they left the school his dad was waiting in his car at the front of the school. Honestly, other than that one day he seemed to be pretty punctual about it.

Which, definitely hadn’t been a stellar first impression as far as Taako was concerned. He wouldn’t go and say he gave much of a shit about Angus other than what he was being paid to care about, but Taako didn’t like shitty neglectful parents.

It didn’t  _ seem _ like that was the case though. As far as he could tell, Angus didn’t show any signs of bad parents or things like that. No one could say he didn’t know what to look for with that kind of stuff either.

But it was whatever now. He’d given Angus some advice to keep from forgetting things, and if it kept being a problem he could probably report it to a counselor or something. If it was even a memory thing, he still wasn’t 100% sure if he believed that or not.

Taako didn’t have to worry about that until the next time he saw Angus though. It was the weekend now and he actually had off from the dumbass call center too. For once he had a good couple of days to himself. If he was smart he’d use that time to unpack some of the shit that he’d been leaving in boxes in the six months he’d been living here, but hey he’d gone this long without needing that stuff. He needed a break and unpacking was not a break.

No, instead he was going to go to the store and buy some nice food and actually cook himself something for a change. It’d been a while since he’d had the chance or the energy to cook, and he wasn’t going to waste this opportunity.

So Saturday morning he woke up bright and early, or well, he woke up at 11:48am. Which was before noon so that was bright and early for a weekend as far as Taako was concerned. He half considered going over to Lup and Barry’s for the weekend instead. It’d be less work and he could probably use the company.

He’d already decided he was going to stay in and cook though. Plus, he’d spent every day off he’d had so far at their place, and sure he knew they didn’t mind. Hell, Lup was bugging him to come over more often than not, but he could still stand to give them a little bit more space than he usually did. He could chill in his own house, if Lup and Barry wanted to hang out they could come over to his place for a change.

With that decided, Taako forced himself to get dressed like a person. As tired as he usually was after working at the call center and then running over to the school so he wasn’t late for tutoring, he should’ve gone shopping afterwords. That way he could’ve spent the whole day not having to get dressed. Well, he guessed there was tomorrow, since he didn’t have to work then either.

As it was, stuffing himself into some faded black skinny jeans (he refused to get bluejeans, Barold be damned) and an old t-shirt was a necessary sacrifice. He pulled his hair up in a messy bun and didn’t bother with any sort of make up. One, because he didn’t need it to still be jaw dropping gorgeous. And two because society dictated that he needed to be clothed to go outside, but no one said they needed to be nice clothes. He dressed presentable all the time for work, that was all they were getting out of him.

The only downside of going to the store by himself instead of with Lup and Barry or some other chucklefuck he called a friend was the fact that he had to take the bus. Walmart was technically in walking distance, if he didn’t mind tearing his own arms off walking back carrying everything. Easier to take the bus and actually get to go to a real grocery store.

In a rare stroke of serendipity neither it nor Taako were late today, so it went better than it usually did. It also gave him time to decide what exactly he was gonna buy. Chicken? No. Turkey? He had energy, but not that much energy. Eventually he settled on spaghetti and meatballs. Simple enough but he could really go all in on the meatballs and sauce.

Shopping was nice, it’d been a while since he’d gone on his own and was able to go through and pick ingredients and take his time. Shopping with Lup was fun but often resulted in arguments over which type of tomatoes would be better in the sauce, while Barry kept buying dairy shit they all knew he shouldn't eat. Shopping with the boner squad was like trying to herd a couple of poorly trained dogs who figured out how to throw little debbies into the cart when he wasn’t looking.

So Taako was fucking casual about it, picking up the stuff he’d need for dinner, and grabbing something to make for tomorrow too. Also just a bunch of shit he’d been running low on. If he was going to go shopping might as well get as much done as possible so he wouldn’t have to run back out for a while.

Soon enough his cart was pretty much full, and Taako was starting to regret getting so much stuff as he thought about having to carry it all back up to his apartment. Well, he’d deal with that problem once he got there. Still, he figured he should head to the check out instead of doing another loop around the store and getting even more junk he didn’t need.

“Mr. Taako!” a voice called as he was on his way to the checkout, and stopped pushing his cart and turned towards it. Yeah, Taako didn’t know a lot of kids, or a lot of people who would call him ‘Mr.' So he wasn’t surprised to see Angus coming towards him.

“Sup little man?” he asked, taking a brief glance around and yep, there was the dad. Usually Taako doubted he’d be able to remember what the guy looked like after one quick encounter with the guy. For as off putting as that encounter had been though, Taako could admit the dude was hot. Tall, dark and handsome to a frankly ridiculous degree, which had only served to piss Taako off even more when they first met. Where did a dude get off looking that good and still being a shitty dad?

Except maybe Taako had judged a bit too harshly a bit too fast. Or at least he hoped so, cause Angus was a good kid.

“I’m sorry, he saw you and wanted to come over and say hello,” Mr. Tall Dark Dad said, giving a sheepish smile.

“Ain’t a thing to apologize for,” Taako said with a dismissive wave. “How’s it hanging my dude? You remembering to study for that math test?” he asked. He was pretty sure it was math, if it wasn’t math hopefully Angus wouldn’t call him out on it.

“Yep! I have it marked down in my phone like you showed me,” Angus said. Okay, so either Taako had gotten the subject right or Angus wasn’t bothering to correct him.

“Fuck yeah little dude,” Taako said, and then remembered that he was not alone with Angus this time, and maybe his dad wouldn’t like him saying fuck in front of his kid. “I mean hell yeah,” wait, that might still be bad if he was like, old fashioned. From the way the two of them dressed they might be old fashioned, shit. “Uh, shit- I mean, I’m usually a lot more professional at work, off hours, ya know?” he lied.

“Oh yeah absolutely dad,” Angus said, backing him up. Taako wasn’t sure if that made him sound more or less credible if he was being honest. He could tell Angus was full of shit, but Taako was attuned to that kind of stuff. For his part though his dad just looked kind of amused.

“I’m sure it’s no worse than what he’s hearing at school, and Angus knows he’s not supposed to repeat that kind of language,” he said. Angus pouted somewhat but didn’t look like he was gonna argue, and alright, seemed like this dude wasn’t a total dickwad.

“Oh, I don’t remember if I ever properly introduced myself. You caught me kind of frazzled last time. I’m Kravitz McDonald, Angus’s father,” Kravitz said, holding out a hand for Taako to shake.

“Yeah I caught that last part, so I’ve just been referring to you as daddy in my head up till now, but I guess I can stop that,” Taako said with a grin, shaking his hand. Maybe pushing his luck a little but hey, Angus had said he didn’t have a mom. The instant flustered look that came over his face was hilarious and so worth it.

“I- ah, yes you can- you can just call me Kravitz,” he managed to stutter out, and Angus was snickering.

“For sure, for sure,” Taako said, nodding sagely. There was an awkward moment where no one said anything and they were all just standing there. “Uh, hey Kravitz?”

“Yes?”

“Can I have my hand back now?” Taako asked. Angus fell into a fit of giggles that it sounded like he’d been holding in up till then, and Kravitz pulled away so fast it was like Taako had suddenly burned him. Taako couldn’t help but start laughing as well, because holy shit. He did not expect to be able to short circuit the dude like that.

“I am  _ so _ sorry, I uh, we should probably get going. It was quite nice seeing you again,” Kravitz quickly said, and Taako managed to get his laughter back under control and nod. 

“Yeah of course my dude, I should be heading out too. Ango make sure to remember to study before Monday, you got that?” he said, still grinning pretty wide. Okay, he might’ve judged the dude a bit too harshly at first. He didn’t seem like a bad guy, and Angus seemed real comfortable laughing at his dad being a doofus. Being able to laugh at someone without being worried was important.

“Of course sir, see you later!” Angus said happily. With that they started walking off, and Taako continued to head to the check out.

All going in the exact same fucking direction.

“Are you heading to check out too Mr. Taako?” Angus asked, walking along with his hand on the side of his dad’s cart.

“Well, I was. But now I think I might walk right out and shoplift all of this to get out of the awkward 'walking the same direction after saying goodbye' situation we got going on right now,” Taako said. At least Kravitz somehow managed to look even more uncomfortable than Taako felt.

“Don’t do that,” Kravitz said, like he was actually concerned Taako would actually run off with a cart full of groceries. Which like, he might’ve if he didn’t like coming to this grocery store so much.

When they got into line Taako took the time to glance over what was actually in their cart. It looked like it was mostly frozen and instant food. He was half surprised he didn’t straight up see some lunchables in there. He guessed it made sense with the whole single parent thing. That wasn’t a fucking gig Taako would want to end up with, that was for sure.

Taako expected them to leave once they were all rung up and paid, but to his surprise they waited around while he checked out his own groceries. He guessed they were in this thing together for the long haul now. Might as well go the last mile and head out of the store together.

Taako had kind of forgotten how much he’d grabbed with the distraction from Angus and his dad. He was quickly remembering that though as the cashier bagged it and he put everything back into his cart. Fuck, it was not going to be fun getting all this shit on the bus, let alone all the way up to his apartment. Taako was remembering the upside to shopping with his friends, even when they were fucking disasters. More arms, and he could always make either Magnus or Barry do most of the heavy lifting.

“Where’s your car sir?” Angus asked as they left the store. “So that we know if we’re going to be walking in the same direction again and can say bye at an appropriate place this time,” he added, and Taako let out a snort of laughter at that.

“I think we’re in luck on that one this time,” Taako said, starting to try and hang as many bags from his arms as possible. “I took the bus, public transportation is good for the environment and all that jazz,” he said.

“Are you going to be able to carry all that on the bus?” Kravitz asked. Taako had about three bags on each arm at this point, and oh boy he made a mistake buying so many drinks. Maybe he could like, steal the cart and walk home.

“Absolutely. Can’t you tell from the bod that I’m pretty fuc- pretty dang diesel,” Taako said, managing to stop himself before cursing again. Angus still ended up laughing, but it was probably at Taako’s not too convincing lie.

“We can give you a ride back to your house if you want, can’t we dad?” Angus offered.

“Oh, yes of course. It wouldn’t be a problem, and carpooling is about as good for the environment as the bus is, I think,” Kravitz added. Taako stopped trying to shove a fifth bag onto his right arm, not expecting that. Angus offering didn’t surprise him that much, he seemed like the kind of kid to help little old ladies cross the street and shit like that. Of course he’d offer to give him a ride. He didn’t expect his dad to agree so quickly though.

Taako’s arms were already starting to die a little from trying to hold all his shit. Plus he still hadn’t found a safe way to try and hold the eggs and bread without them getting crushed. So, he let it all drop back into his cart and nodded.

“Uh, yeah that’d actually be like, a huge help. I usually go shopping with my sister and her husband, I’m used to having more hands,” he said.

“We’re right over here,” Angus said, grabbing the front of Taako’s cart and starting to pull him into the parking lot. After a bit they stopped at a pretty nice looking car. Taako didn’t know shit about cars, but it was shiny and seemed sleek. It took a bit of finagling to fit all their bags into the trunk, but Taako managed to keep most of his shit to one side.

Once they got everything in Taako followed them into the car. Angus jumped in the backseat so Taako figured he was free to grab shotgun without an issue. It smelled kind of like McDonalds inside, and it was real hard for him not to comment on it. He was getting a free ride though, so he somehow managed it.

“It ain’t far, it’s those apartments on Balance, by Ango’s school,” Taako explained. Thankfully Kravitz nodded and seemed to have an idea of where he was talking about. Driving was a lot faster than the bus, it was more of a straight shoot and they didn’t have to make a fuckton of stops. So it wasn’t long at all before they were pulling up in front of his apartment building.

“Do you need any help carrying everything to your apartment?” Kravitz asked as they parked. Taako was desperately trying to remember the last time he actually cleaned, and what level of dirty was considered a normal human amount.

“You don’t gotta. You already did me a huge solid getting me here, and I’m sure you both got shit you need to get to,” he said.

“It’s really not a problem,” Kravitz said, Angus was already up and out of his seat, grabbing some of the lighter bags.

“Well if you’re gonna insist and shit. Fair warning though, my place is kinda a mess right now, wasn’t expecting to have people over. I mean, even if I did it probably wouldn’t be that much better,” he said, starting to pile up the bags as well. Between the three of them, they might be able to make it in one trip. 

“That’s quite all right,” Kravitz said. They did manage all the bags, and Taako was thankful as fuck for the help once they finishing climbing the stairs and were up at his apartment. It was a disaster area inside, like Taako figured, but neither of them commented on it.

“Did you move in recently?” Kravitz asked, and it was as close as he got to mentioning the state of things. It was a fair enough question, with all the boxes around.

“More or less,” Taako said, dropping his bags on a clear spot of the counter. As much as the rest of his place was in shambles, the kitchen was clean enough. “Thanks again, I owe you guys big time,” he added.

“It’s really not a problem, we’ll get out of your hair now though,” Kravitz said.

“See you Monday Mr. Taako! It was really nice running into you!” Angus said. Taako nodded, walking them to the door.

“Nice seeing you too pumpkin, later,” he said, shutting the door once they were out of his apartment.

That had been.

Well.

That had certainly been something all right.

Turning back to the kitchen, Taako started putting the groceries away, leaving out the stuff to make dinner with. He really had been lucky for that chance encounter, he might’ve had to give in and call Lup or Magnus for a ride if they hadn’t offered.

Well, he had until Monday to figure out what to do as thanks. It shouldn’t be too hard to come up with something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it rises once again! whoops, i keep going months without updating this fic, sorry about that. I feel like I have a better idea of where this fic is going now though, so once nanowrimo is done I should be able to get on a more regular update schedule. hopefully. 
> 
> as always, thanks for reading and i hope you enjoy~


	5. Family Time In Your Area

Well, that run in had been both entirely unexpected and a lot longer than Kravitz figured it would go. He thought they'd talk for a few minutes at most and then go their separate ways, although that wasn't how it worked out. Kravitz had been hoping to have a better second impression than his first one must’ve been. Considering everything he wasn’t too sure how successful he’d been in that regard. It had been a lot at once and he was certain he’d made a fool of himself on multiple levels.

He and Angus were leaving the apartment complex they’d taken Taako to now. They weren’t in any hurry but Kravitz figured they should get home before all the cold stuff started to melt. As he got into the car Angus joined him up in the passenger seat this time, which was where he usually sat.

He also had a grin on his face that Kravitz didn’t trust for a second.

“Mr. Taako sure is nice, isn’t he?” Angus asked, and Kravitz nodded hesitantly.

“He seems pleasant enough. I’m glad you’re getting along with your tutor,” he said, starting the car and beginning the drive back to their house.

“You should’ve asked for his number,” Angus said. Kravitz had to resist turning to look over at his son with disbelief, focusing forward on the road and pointedly not looking embarrassed for any reason.

“Why would I do that? If you feel like you still need some extra help with your school work when you’re home you know you can always come to me for help Angus, no matter how busy I am,” Kravitz said. He kind of got the feeling that this wasn’t about Angus’s school work though.

“Oh, I didn’t mean for me. I meant you should’ve asked for his number because you like him,” Angus said, blunt as anything. Kravitz was well aware of the fact that Angus did that mostly because he thought people’s (particularly his father’s) reactions were funny. So, he was trying very hard not to give him any sort of flustered response.

“I don’t- where in the world did you get that impression?” he asked, pretty sure he was failing on not giving Angus the reaction he wanted.

“Do you want a list? I can write you down a list,” Angus said, and his tone of voice was of a little boy trying to be helpful, but his words were nothing but mocking.

“No, Angus I don’t need a list, and I don’t like your tutor,” Kravitz said, and then frowned somewhat because maybe that came off as too harsh. “I mean, I don’t not like him either. Like I said he seems like a perfectly pleasant person and I’m glad you two get along,” he added quickly. Angus didn’t seem particularly offended by anything Kravitz had said though. In fact when Kravitz glanced over his son still looked rather smug.

“I think I might make a list anyway,” Angus said, and if Kravitz wasn’t driving he would’ve hidden his face in his hands. Thankfully it did not take too much longer for them to get back to their house. Angus helped him carry in the groceries, although Kravitz made a point of carrying any of the particularly heavy bags.

“You forgot to let go of his hand,” Angus said, rather out of the blue as they started putting away the groceries.

“What?” Kravitz asked, although he knew what Angus was referring to. He wished he didn’t, he would very much like to forget that blunder. It had taken him off guard was all, he couldn't be blamed for that.

“I’m making the list,” Angus said, like it was obvious. Kravitz groaned, letting his head rest against the bottle of apple juice he was currently holding.

“Angus, please don’t make the list,” he said, even though he was pretty sure it was a futile effort.

“You forgot to let go of his hand. You helped him take up his groceries,” Angus continued, like Kravitz had assumed he would. Kravitz left out the frozen burgers for dinner tonight so that they could defrost some.

“That was just being polite, and you suggested it anyway,” he argued. He didn’t think it was an unfair protest, although Angus seemed to ignore him.

“You didn’t get mad at him for cursing in front of me,” he added, and Kravitz grimaced the slightest bit at that. He didn’t have as good of an excuse for that one. Or, not excuse, because none of these were excuses, they were just his reasoning. Separate reasoning from the one Angus had, because his son definitely had the wrong idea.

“You’re getting older,” he said, and he could see Angus start to open his mouth to ask a question and continued before he could say anything. “Not old enough to be repeating those words, but I understand that you might be hearing them out in the world now,” he said. The excited look that had flashed across Angus’s face quickly died at that, and it was a little funny. His son was teasing him enough, Kravitz could do a little bit of teasing back.

“You kept staring at him, like a lot,” Angus said, and Kravitz could feel his face heat up as he went back to making ‘the list.’

“No I wasn’t,” he said. It wasn’t a very good defense, but he was certain he hadn’t been staring at Taako anymore than a normal human interaction amount of staring. Which was probably no staring.

“You were,” Angus insisted, and then a look flashed across his face. Kravitz knew that look, it was when he realized something that would have gone unnoticed by most people.

“Wait, is that what you’re always looking at when you pick me up at school? Are you staring at Mr. Taako before we leave?” he asked, excitement building in his voice. If Kravitz thought his face was warm before it was positively burning now.

“I-  _ no. _ That’s not- that’s ridiculous, of  _ course not,” _ he stuttered out. He supposed he might’ve watched Taako walking off a few times, but it wasn’t in a creepy way or how Angus was suggesting. He was just a person walking, and Kravitz’s eyes had been drawn to him. Angus was laughing openly now, and even if this was all very false and wrong it was nice seeing his son having fun like this.

“You  _ were!” _ he insisted, and he’d stopped laughing but he was still grinning widely. “Don’t worry dad, I promise I won’t tell him. I’ll let you work that out on your own,” Angus added. Kravitz laughed a little awkwardly at that, putting the last of the groceries away. He was fairly certain it had only taken so long because he kept getting distracted with this conversation.

“Well, thank you for that, but I really wouldn’t be getting your hopes up,” Kravitz said. Angus had never seemed invested in his dad having any sort of love life before, and now with this Kravitz didn’t want to disappoint him if nothing happened.

_ When _ nothing happened. Even if Kravitz was interested in the slightest, he’d spoken to the man twice and had made an idiot of himself both times. He highly doubted there was much chance left there.

“We’ll see,” was all Angus said at that though. There was a confidence there that Kravitz didn’t trust in the slightest.

Still, he told himself that Angus would forget all about this in a couple weeks. Probably no longer than a month. After all, Kravitz doubted they be having that many more encounters with him out in their day to day. Sure, Angus would see him at school on the regular, but he’d probably realize quick enough that Taako wasn’t interested in him.

As it was at the moment though Angus seemed content not to press it anymore. He said he had to study for a test on Monday and Kravitz told him he’d get him for dinner. It was good that Angus was studying. He still seemed to be doing alright on tests and such in school, but studying never hurt.

Making sure he had an alarm set for when he needed to go out and make dinner Kravitz headed back to his office. Even though he’d been working on this for nearly two weeks now they still had made less progress on figuring out what was going on with the screwed up reports than he would’ve liked.

He’d had it insisted that he not spent another full weekend in the office though. That spending some time with his head not buried in numbers and spreadsheets might help give him some fresh eyes. It was a fair point, and he had enjoyed spending this extra time with Angus.

He was already itching to get back to figuring this out though. Luckily there was plenty of things he could look into while not at the office. It wasn’t as ideal as having everything on hand, but it still made him feel like he was at least getting some progress done.

From what they could tell so far it seemed to be a very complicated form of embezzlement. For what and by who they’d yet to figure out though, as whoever had done it managed to cover their track incredibly well. Kravitz supposed the 'for what' question wasn’t all that important either. They just needed to find out who it was and stop them, because despite them having noticed the problem now it was still happening. Either whoever it was hadn’t realized they’d been noticed yet, or they didn’t care.

By the time his alarm went off for dinner Kravitz felt that his mother had been right about him needing fresh eyes. He felt like he managed to work through a few things that had been stumping him for a while, narrowing down the list of departments it could have come from. It still wasn’t by much, but it was something.

He wasn’t technically even supposed to be working today, so he figured that was enough for now and went to start working on dinner. It was just burgers and fries, but they weren’t brought from a fast food place at least. Sure, they were frozen and Kravitz didn’t know what to do with the burgers but put them in a pan and flip them over occasionally until they turned brown. There were probably like, seasonings he could use, but he didn’t have the faintest idea what kinds.

Once everything was done he called Angus down to eat. He showed up about a minute later and quickly started making himself a plate.

“Were you able to study for your math test some?” Kravitz asked. Angus still had Sunday if he hadn’t, but it was what he said he was going to do. He seemed a bit distracted, and it took a moment before he registered the question and nodded.

“Huh? Oh yeah, for sure. I got a lot done,” he said, and there was something there that didn’t quite seem like the whole truth. Kravitz wasn’t sure what to do about it though. He wasn’t sure why Angus would lie about if he studied, especially since Kravitz hadn’t even told him to. It was something Angus had brought up doing himself.

“That’s good, let me know if you need any help. It’s for math, right?” he asked, and Angus nodded. It seemed like he was focusing a bit more now, whatever was distracting him before pushed from his mind.

“Yep. I think I’m good, I got pretty much all of the practice questions down,” he said, and Kravitz smiled at that. The smile dipped a little somewhat when he bit into his burger. Maybe grabbing some from McDonalds or Wendy’s would’ve been better. Even with ketchup and mustard that was very bland. If Angus thought the same thing he was at least polite enough not to say anything.

“Want to do something after dinner? I’m sure we could find a movie to watch or something if you’re bored,” Kravitz asked. He was trying not to let this problem at work distract him from spending time with Angus. At least too much. He tried to make it a point to put his work away and spend the evening with Angus most days of the week, but he’d kind of lacking with that since all this went down.

“Um, yeah I guess so. Are you sure you don’t have work to do though?” Angus asked.

“I’m sure. We’ve made some good breakthroughs on the money issues this week,” he said. Angus still looked uncertain for some reason, and Kravitz didn’t know why that was but it didn’t sit very well with him.

“Then yeah, that sounds like fun,” he said, and Kravitz didn’t know if he should press Angus on this. It was possible that he was just getting to that age where hanging out with your dad wasn’t as fun anymore. Reluctantly Kravitz let it go, making a mental note of it instead. If Angus starting making a habit of pulling away or there were other signs that something was wrong he’d ask him. As it was right now though he would give him some privacy.

Whenever had made Angus hesitant this time though seemed to fade once they got settled in the living room. Kravitz let Angus pick out a movie while he made some popcorn, and at least he couldn’t screw that one up too badly.

Angus seemed to relax more as the movie got started. It wasn’t long before he was picking out plot holes and laughing when Kravitz did rather poor imitations of the actor’s accents.

Maybe he’d just been worried about taking up his time with all the issues going on at work. Kravitz wasn’t very happy with the idea, but it made sense. He  _ knew _ he could get too wrapped up in his job, and that he needed to be careful that Angus never felt like he came second to his work.

“Angus, how would you like to go out and do something tomorrow?” he asked. Kravitz had gotten rather distracted from the movie at this point and wasn’t too sure what was going on.

“Uh, what do you mean?” Angus asked, sounding cautious again.

“I was thinking we could, I don’t know, go to the mall or something. Maybe get some new clothes and make a day of it,” he suggested.

“Yeah okay, but uh, don’t you have to work on the stuff going on at Astral?” he asked, which made Kravitz think that he might’ve been right about what was going on.

“Your grandmother is already going to have my head for working on that today. That’s not something you should worry about anyway, work will get done when it gets done,” he said. Angus was giving him a bit of a look at that, which was a little fair.

“I guess if you’re not busy then,” he said before turning to put his attention back to the movie.

The next day they did end up going to the mall, and again Angus seemed a bit uncertain at first. Once they were there though and started looking through the stores he relaxed and seemed to be enjoying himself. Kravitz was pretty sure he’d ended up getting more clothes than Angus had though. He’d gotten a few things, but was more interested in scouring through the bookstore for new things to read.

Angus had finally seemed satisfied with his finds and they’d left the Boarders to grab some lunch in the food court. Angus already had his head in one of his new books, careful not to get any teriyaki sauce on it as he ate.

Kravitz was taking the moment to check his email on his phone. Just to be sure that nothing catastrophic had happened while he wasn’t paying attention to the office. If he hadn’t looked up to grab another bite of his chicken he would’ve missed them walking by like Angus had.

It was a surprise seeing Angus's tutor while they were out once in a weekend, twice was starting to get a little freaky. It was clear that he hadn’t noticed the two of them at all though, already past their table so that Kravitz couldn’t see him straight on.

The reason he hadn’t noticed the two of them was clear as day too.

He was laughing, smiling so brightly at a man he was holding hands with. From the absolutely smitten expression, Kravitz wasn’t surprised when he leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to the man’s lips. It was a chased thing, probably due to the fact that they were in public. It still managed to make the other man, who was clearly Taako’s boyfriend or some such thing, flustered.

The two started moving on, and Kravitz made a split second decision not to draw Angus’s attention to them. He knew he would be excited to see his tutor again, since he really seemed to be fond of him. Still, he didn’t want to interrupt what was very likely a date.

Well, he hoped Angus didn’t stay too hung up on thinking Kravitz had a crush on Taako for very long now, especially knowing this. Even if Kravitz had been in any way interested, he wasn’t going to go after someone in a relationship. He supposed if Angus did press this he would just have to tell him that, even if he ended up getting disappointed.

Kravitz hadn’t realized he’d been spacing out for a bit there, but he quickly turned back to his phone. Okay, no messages saying anyone had died or that they found the culprit, so he put it away and finished up the last of his chicken and rice.

“Do you want to finish your food now or take it home?” Kravitz asked. There was still a fair chunk of food left in Angus’s bowl, but it looked like he’d stopped paying attention to it a bit ago.

“I’m full, we can take it home,” he said, grabbing the lid Kravitz had already got in case and putting it on. Kravitz did a double check to make sure it was on tight before putting it in one of the bags with the clothes. If the worst happened and it spilled they could wash those, but that wouldn’t work for the books.

“Are you feeling up to walking around a bit more?” Kravitz asked, and he definitely didn’t want to rush Angus, but a part of him was a bit worried about running into his tutor now. Not that it was bad or anything, it was just- it would be awkward.

“I’m actually kind of tired, do you mind if we head home?” Angus asked, which was somewhat of a relief to hear. If Angus had wanted to stay he wouldn’t have objected, but this worked out well. 

“That’s quite alright Angus. We can head out if you want,” he said, doing a quick check to make sure they weren’t forgetting any bags. Angus nodded, and on the way back home he started telling Kravitz about the book he’d begun reading. It was by the same author who did the Caleb Cleveland books, but it was a fantasy series instead of mystery so he hadn’t bothered to check it out until now. It sounded interesting enough to Kravitz so far, but Angus hadn’t gotten very far while they were eating lunch.

Once they got home Kravitz was about to suggest some other way for them to pass the time, scrabble or maybe uno or something. Before he could though Angus was already heading off to his room with his bags from the mall.

“I had a lot of fun dad, let me know when dinner’s done,” he said, and Kravitz nodded. Angus probably wanted to finish up the book he’d started, so he guessed he wasn’t that surprised.

“Alright. I’ll uh, I’ll probably be out here catching up on some things. Let me know if you get bored and want to hang out some more,” he offered.

“Will do,” Angus said, and then he was down the hall and Kravitz could hear his bedroom door open and then close again. Kravitz quickly put Angus’s leftovers away before he forgot about them and then did the same with the new clothes he’d got.

Once that was done he wasn’t all that sure what else to  _ do. _ He told himself he wasn’t going to work today, although that had mostly been so he could hang out with Angus. Now he was kind of feeling like he should keep from work on principle though. To prove that he  _ could _ go the whole day without working.

Pulling his laptop out into the living room, he tried to relax that way. It was way too easy to click over to the tabs he had open keeping track of the flow of money in Astral and as soon as he found himself starting to look them over to closed the laptop. Okay, that was a bust.

He supposed he could always read as well. There were a few books he’d been meaning to tackle for a while now, including a couple Angus had wanted him to check out. He felt too distracted to read though, even if there was no real reason why he should be. He guessed work was still wearing on him pretty heavily.

And for some reason his mind kept wandering back to when he’d seen Angus’s tutor at the mall. There was no reason for him to be thinking about that, and he tried to dismiss it every time it came up.

He was probably worried about Angus. He’d seemed real excited at the idea of him having a crush on Taako, he was bound to be disappointed when he found out that wasn’t going to happen. That was the only thing that made sense.

In the end, Kravitz ended up cleaning most of the house before the time he had to cook dinner. It was a decent enough distraction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey so still took a while to update but not as long as previous times so we're getting better! I'm having a lot of fun writing kravitz and angus's dynamic. which, to that effect i do have a couple chapters up of another dadvitz fic i started for nano, called Death As The Family Business if any of y'all want to go check that out. 
> 
> as always, thanks for reading and i hope you enjoyed!


	6. Some Progress In Your Area

Angus really and truly did appreciate his dad, and it was always a lot of fun when they had the time to hang out together and relax. He didn’t begrudge his dad any for all the time he had to spend working. Even still, it was nice when he was able to pull himself away from that and they could spend the day together. He really did look forward to those moments. 

So Angus definitely had fun spending the whole weekend with his dad. He knew the stuff going on at work was stressing him out, and it was nice getting to ignore all of that and watch movies and go to the mall. He liked it, and  _ any other weekend _ it would have been great.

Except for one problem. This weekend he’d wanted to redo his essay. He told himself he would dig out the old ruined copy and finish it. If he needed to hole himself up in his room the whole time pretending to study for his math test, then he would. He figured his dad would be busy again with work, that no one would even notice if he spend the whole weekend working in his room. It was supposed to be easy.

When his dad said they needed to go shopping Saturday morning, he figured it was fine. It was early in the day and grocery shopping never took too long, as soon as they got back home he could go work on his essay. If anything, it was a good way to mark when he was going to start.

And that was what he did. Sure, it took a little longer to get home than he expected, since they ran into Mr. Taako and helped him with his groceries too. Angus would say that detour was definitely worth it though. Seeing his dad and Mr. Taako talking had been great and pretty hilarious. It didn’t seem like Taako was annoyed with his dad anymore, and it was funny how obvious his dad’s crush was.

Angus was kind of surprised it took him that long to notice it honestly. Usually he was quicker at things like that. He was pretty sure he’d never actually seen his dad have a crush on someone before though, so it made sense that he didn’t realize it right away.

But even with all that happening they were still done pretty early in the day. Angus had told his dad he was going to study, and went to his room to work on his essay.

He managed to pull out the crumpled, somewhat ripped up paper and look it over as best as he could. Some of it was kind of smudged and hard to read, and the conclusion he’d been working on was mostly erased. He could gather what parts were missing from context clues though and fill in the blanks.

He still wasn’t happy with it in the slightest, but he just needed it done. It still took longer than he would’ve liked to start transcribing it, not pleased with the idea of handing in something that looked like trash, even if he was moving it to nice fresh paper. In the end he’d only gotten about halfway done copying the finished parts down when his dad called him for dinner.

And then during dinner, he asked Angus if he wanted to watch a movie afterwards. Which, yeah he  _ wanted _ to. That sounded like fun. Angus’s only attempt to get out of it was to ask his dad if he should be working. He insisted it was fine though, and so Angus said yes.

He still had all of Sunday to work on the essay after all, and as long as he stopped  _ fussing _ with it, it would be fine. He was already halfway done. Mostly.

Except then while they were watching the movie his dad asked if he wanted to go out to the mall the next day, and once again Angus found himself agreeing. It was stupid, he should’ve just told his dad he had stuff to do any said no.

But he didn’t want to tell his dad that he was still struggling with an essay he was supposed to hand in  _ weeks _ ago. He’d already told his dad he only had studying to do, and that he’d mostly finished it anyway. If he tried to think up some other excuse his dad would think he was trying to avoid him or something, and that wasn’t it at all.

Angus guessed he could tell him the truth, it wasn’t like he’d be  _ mad. _ Probably disappointed and worried and concerned that maybe the tutoring wasn’t enough and they’d have to move him back down a grade again. Angus didn’t want that.

So as soon as they got back from the mall he headed straight back to his room. It was already well into the afternoon at that point, and Angus wanted to get as much done as fast as he could. He got the feeling his dad was kind of sad about him leaving in such a hurry, but once he finished this dumb paper he could stop  _ worrying _ about it.

Angus told himself he just couldn’t  _ care _ anymore. He wrote down everything he’d had on the crumpled up, dumb essay word for word, not letting himself have an opportunity to try to change things. He wasn’t  _ happy _ with it, but he wasn’t going to be happy with it. He still needed a conclusion when he finished transcribing, and he wrote one hastily. He didn’t even let himself check it over for spelling. It was  _ done _ and he’d just managed to stick it in a folder and put it in his bookbag by the time his dad called him for dinner.

The rest of the house was clean when he went out, which was surprising. Not that their house was particularly messy, but it was usually pretty cluttered. And maybe a little messy, but they knew where everything was so it wasn't a big deal. His dad must’ve noticed the way he was looking around.

“I figured that since I’m not working today might as well clean up some around here,” he said. Angus nodded, heading over to make himself a plate of food. It was just spaghetti, and he had those leftovers still in the fridge for later if he got hungry again. Or he could have them for a snack after school tomorrow.

“It looks good,” he said, which was true. While they ate dinner Angus asked if he wanted to get their instruments out afterwards. Partially because he was pretty sure his dad had been disappointed that he’d run off as soon as they got home. Also because he didn’t want the chance to go and mess with his essay anymore. His dad seemed happy with the request, and Angus was glad for the distraction.

He wasn’t anywhere as good as his dad at playing music, but it was still fun. Plus his dad had a lot longer to practice this sort of thing, and it was more of a passing hobby for Angus. He was pretty sure his dad had plans to go professional at some point when he was younger.

The next day he walked into his English class, trying not to look too nervous. It wasn’t early enough that Angus could talk to her without  _ some  _ of the other students seeing, but at least it was before class. As he handed it in he gave a mumbled nonspecific excuse and an apology. She assured him it was fine and that she was glad he’d managed to turn it in. All in all the exchange wasn't  _ as _ horrible as Angus had been expecting, but it still wasn't enjoyable. He'd rather not do it again.

Angus still hadn’t looked at the thing since he finished it, and he  _ really _ didn’t want to hand it in, but once she had it there wasn’t anything else he could do. He told himself that at least it was over now.

It was better than getting a zero. He  _ knew  _ that getting a bad grade would be better than getting none, but for some reason it didn’t feel that way.

He might not have even  _ gotten _ a bad grade if he’d managed to hand it in on time. He was sure his teacher was going to dock points for how late it was. So even if it was great, which Angus didn’t feel like it was, his grade was going to be worse.

He tried to put it out of his mind for the rest of the day and actually focus on his classes though. When he wasn’t frustrated over getting things right he really did love school and learning. After a bit he somewhat managed to put the essay out of his mind some, and by the time he reached his final period he had almost forgotten about it.

Except then he remembered he had tutoring today. Which he was actually excited about for a moment, because that meant seeing Taako. Angus had been looking forward to that since they saw him at the store on Saturday.

But it also reminded him that his essay was a thing and that he wasn’t happy about it. Still, it was a good thing that he turned it in, and that he could tell Taako he had. He didn't have to keep bothering him about it and he could even check with his teacher to know he was telling the truth.

“Good afternoon Mr. Taako,” Angus said, closing the door to the study room behind him. It was still as small and shabby as it had always been, but Angus was starting to get a little fond of the place. He really hadn’t been thrilled by the prospect of tutoring at first, but it was helping some, and he liked Mr. Taako.

“Sup my dude, how’d your test today go?” he asked, and Angus had almost forgotten that had happened, he’d been so wrapped up in other things. He hadn’t actually studied any for it, since he’d been working on his essay all weekend. He was pretty sure he did decently on it though.

“I think it went well sir,” he said, pulling a seat out and sitting down across from Taako. “Oh, I uh, I finally remembered to hand in my essay today,” he said, since he figured it was best to get that out of the way as soon as possible. It actually got a smile out of Taako.

“Hell yeah, now you never have to think about it again,” he said, and Angus figured that was true. Well, he’d have to think about it once he got the grade back, but it was all officially out of his hands now. There was a bigger sense of relief with that than he expected. “I guess these can be a reward for that too, as well as ya know, a thanks to you and your pops,” Taako said, and he was digging around in his bag now.

After a moment, he came out with a small tupperware box. Angus could see through the clear plastic at some sort of cookie inside. Even from a distance he could see that they looked homemade and really good.

“I was making some and had extra, figured might as well throw some your way since you guys helped me actually get the ingredients into my apartment,” he explained, handing Angus the box. If these were just the extras, Taako must’ve made a whole lot.

“Wow, thank you sir! You didn’t have to, we were happy to help,” Angus said, surprised at how much this had actually managed to cheer him up. “Is it okay if I have one now?” he asked, and Taako shrugged.

“Go nuts. I mean, don’t eat all of them, share some with your dad or whatever, but sure,” he said. Angus opened the tupperware up, and they weren’t still warm or anything like that, he figured Taako must’ve cooked them last night or something.

“I just wanted to check first, since technically we’re not allowed to bring homemade baked good into school. I guess they’re afraid of allergies or poison or something,” he said, taking a bite of the cookie. Even though it wasn’t warm it was still real soft and delicious. “These are  _ really good _ sir!”

“I- yeah, natch,” Taako said, and when Angus looked up at him he looked nervous. “You  _ don’t _ have any allergies, do you? I made sure there weren’t any nuts or anything, cause I didn’t know if you guys were like, good with that. I didn’t think about anything else though,” he said, and he actually sounded pretty worried about it. Was he afraid he was going to lose his job over this if he got sick or something? Angus shook his head though, waiting until he swallowed the cookie to speak.

“No, I’m fine with nuts too sir, but thanks for considering it,” he said. He grabbed one more to eat before closing the box back up. He figured he should cut off the temptation to go eating all of them before his dad could have any.

“Okay. Okay cool, that’s good,” he said, and it looked like he was pretty distracted now. “I mean, I also skipped on the nuts cause cha’ boy is allergic, so what would be the fucking point, but it still counts,” he said. Angus laughed a little at that, sticking the tupperware into his book bag.

“That works too I suppose,” he said, and Taako still looked a little nervous. “I won’t tell anyone about the cookies, other than my dad I guess. You didn’t know they weren’t allowed and I don’t want you to get in trouble,” he added. It looked like Mr. Taako relaxed some at that.

“Sounds good my dude. Yeah, best to keep my rad cooking skills on the down low. Don’t want everyone trying to get a piece after all,” he said, and Angus nodded in agreement. Figuring they should start with the tutoring stuff for real Angus pulled out his science textbook. Taako still seemed a little distracted, although Angus wasn’t sure why.

“Um, I’ve got some vocabulary I have to do, although I’m not really sure how you can help with that. Vocab is pretty easy,” he said, and Taako nodded, seeming to get back into the mind of teaching and less hung up on whatever it was he’d been thinking about. Angus couldn’t help but be curious there, but maybe he was just genuinely concerned about the possibility of Angus having some sort of allergic reaction.

“Yeah, I get you. Well, we can make some flashcards and then practice with them once we’re done, how about that? Is that all the homework you got tonight?” he asked.

“I need to start reading a new book for English, but I can do that on my own sir,” he said, and Taako nodded, seeming to believe him.

“Sounds good pumpkin, let’s get started on those note cards then,” he said. The rests of the tutoring session was pretty relaxed. Angus didn’t have a lot to do and Taako didn’t seem too sure about what to do when Angus didn’t have a lot of homework to finish up. That was fair, it was his first time doing the tutoring thing, Angus wasn’t sure what they were supposed to do with the downtime either.

Soon enough Angus was gathering up the flashcards they’d made and they were heading out of the school. His dad was just pulling up when they headed out, which made sense, since they had come out a little early.

“You should come say hi to my dad,” Angus said with a grin. Taako raised an eyebrow at that, looking a little amused by the idea.

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?” he asked, and Angus was already digging around in his backpack for the tupperware he’d tossed in there earlier.

“So he can thank you for the cookies too of course,” Angus said like it was obvious. Taako snorted at that, but shrugged. Thankfully he didn’t seem worried about his dad finding out he’d made them cookies, which Angus had been a little worried about.

“Yeah alright, why not,” he said, following Angus to his car. As they got closer Angus could see the look of confusion and slight panic on his dad’s face. He quickly masked by a polite smile, but it was still easy to see how he was feeling if you knew him well enough. Once they were in speaking distance he rolled down the windows, and Angus tried not to look too amused at how nervous his dad was. 

“Hello there, is everything alright?” he asked, looking like he was uncertain about whether or not to get out of the car. Angus ran around to the other side so that he could get in.

“Mr. Taako made us cookies to thank us for helping with his groceries,” he explained, shoving the box at his dad as soon as he was inside. He could see the befuddled look on his face before he turned to look at Taako, who was still standing outside of the car.

“Oh, uh, thank you. You really didn’t have to do anything,” he insisted, and Taako shrugged, waving the thanks away.

“Don’t even worry about it my dude, any excuse to cook is a good one in my book,” he said. His dad handed the tupperware box back to Angus, and it didn’t seem like he was going to eat one right this second. It was a little disappointing, but Angus wasn’t going to push him on it.

“Well, it was very kind of you none the less,” he said, and it was kind of hard to read the expression on Mr. Taako’s face at that. It didn’t look like a bad one though.

“Like I said, don’t mention it. Ango, make sure to get started on that new book, alright?” he said, and Angus nodded.

“I will sir, don’t worry,” he said. With that Taako nodded and started walking away from the car. “Bye Mr. Taako! See you Wednesday,” Angus called after him, and he waved back casually at that.

“Later my dudes,” he said. With that his dad rolled the windows back up, and as soon as Angus had buckled himself in he started driving off towards their house.

“You need to try the cookies when we get home dad, they’re  _ really good,”  _ Angus said, and his dad nodded. He was still looking a little flustered from the whole interaction, which wasn’t exactly a surprise to Angus.

“I will. How was school today?” he asked, changing the subject. Angus wanted to call him out on it, but if he teased his dad too much then he’d definitely never actually own up to anything.

“It was good,” Angus said, and he was kind of surprised that he was telling the truth there. Even with how unhappy he’d been with the essay, at least he’d gotten it in and Taako was right. Now it was over with and he wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore, this was better than getting a zero. All in all the day had definitely been a lot better than he expected starting out.

As soon as they got home Angus headed to the kitchen to put the box of cookies down. “You really should try one dad,” he continued to insist. His dad looked amused but seemed to relent, putting down a pile of paperwork he’d grabbed from the backseat of the car on the counter before grabbing a cookie. Angus could see his eyes widened in surprise when he at it.

“Oh, damn,” he said, and Angus laughed at that.

“I told you,” he said, and his dad nodded. Angus grabbed another one as well, since he told himself he could have some more once he was home and his dad had tried them. It looked like he was contemplating grabbing a second as well.

“Alight, I suppose you weren’t joking, these are very good. Um, I suppose thank Mr. Taako again for me when you see him on Wednesday,” his dad said, and Angus nodded, grinning brightly.

“I will,” he said, and he could see the suspicious frown on his dad’s face. It was probably warranted, so Angus couldn’t be that annoyed by it.

_ “Just  _ thank him for the cookies, you don’t need to do anything else,” he said, and Angus pouted some at that.

“Fine, if you insist,” he relented. His dad rolled his eyes, but Angus could tell that he wasn’t actually all that annoyed with him. Besides, he only only teasing his dad about the obvious crush he had on his tutor because it was funny. Angus wasn’t actually all that sure if he actually wanted anything to happen with that.

He guessed he did like Mr. Taako a lot, although he didn’t know him all that well yet. If it ended up making his dad happy, he wouldn’t be opposed to it. It was just a little weird thinking about it being more than him and his dad. Sure, his grandmas were around a lot and he went over to their house all the time, but that was different from if his dad actually started dating someone.

So he was fine with teasing his dad about this, but if he wanted to actually take his time and not rush into anything that was fine by Angus. It would definitely be a little too weird if they just started actually dating or something right away.

There was something he really liked about Mr. Taako though. He wouldn’t mind the opportunity to get to hang out with him some more outside of tutoring. If he dad  _ was _ ever going to end up dating someone, he’d rather it be someone he got along with like Mr. Taako.

“Was grandma surprised at you actually not working over the weekend?” he asked, letting the subject change from his tutor for now. His dad chuckled and nodded, and he did end up taking a second cookie.

“She said she was very proud of me, and also to thank you for keeping me occupied and away from work,” he said, and Angus laughed at that.

“Let her know she’s welcome,” he said happily, giving in and eating a third cookie.

“I will,” his dad said, and then he picked the papers he’d put down to try one of the cookies back up. “I do have some work I need to get to now though, are you gonna be okay on your own for a bit?” he asked, and Angus nodded.

“Yeah, I’ve got a book I gotta read for English class,” he said, reaching for another cookie. Before he could get one though his dad picked up the box, which seemed a little difficult considering all the folders he was already holding.

“I’m just gonna put these away for now, don’t want anyone getting sick,” he said, walking over to the food cabinet. It was fair, since Angus had already ate quite a few, but he still pouted somewhat.

“I wasn’t going to eat  _ all _ of them,” he argued, and his dad nodded, not looking too convinced.

“Then you shouldn’t have any problem with them being put away for now,” he said, which was fair. Annoying, but fair.

“Yeah, fine,” he said, trying not to look too put upon. His dad just laughed though, heading back to his office.

“I’ll let you know when dinner’s done,” he said, and Angus nodded, going back towards his room as well.

“Okay, later dad!” he said, and once he was in his room Angus felt himself relax more than he had for a while. He had been more stressed out about his school work than he realized, he supposed.

He guessed the tutoring really was helping, even if it was still taking some time. It was definitely better than doing this all on his own, that was for sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> someday this fic will be on a somewhat regular update schedule. probably. i have to say the amount of y'all that have related to angus in this fic is frightening, but also like, same. 
> 
> as always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy~


	7. Feeling Alright In Your Area

Taako headed back home after tutoring on Monday, feeling like things had gone pretty well. Angus had liked the cookies, although he definitely needed to be smarter about that shit. He hadn’t even considered the idea that the school wouldn’t be down with bringing homemade shit. When he was a kid they did that kind of stuff all the time.

It wasn’t like it didn’t make sense though. Not every kid could down a sleeve of dos-si-dos peanut butter cookies and then skip French class to run down to the nurse for their epipen. Even less kids could do that while shooting finger guns at every panicked teacher and student asking horrified if they were okay and why would he  _ do _ something like that if he was allergic to peanuts.

The answer ‘I just really fucking love dos-si-dos’ was apparently not sufficient or appropriate.  

Still, that was besides the point. Might have been a little weird to make Angus and his dad something he guessed, but hey, Taako was trying to be a nice person here. He mostly wanted the excuse to bake, and he figured it couldn’t hurt to get in good with the kid he was tutoring and his dad. Mostly, he’d done it before he could have a chance to think it through. Then he had a bunch of cookies and figured he might as well go through with it if he’d already made them.

At least Angus seemed to really like them, and wasn’t allergic to anything in them. He didn’t see if Kravitz had liked them or not, since the guy hadn’t tried any in front of him. That was a bit disappointing, since Taako looked forward to any chance for praise, especially for his cooking, but it wasn’t like he could demand the dude try a cookie right that second. That would be fucking weird. 

So yeah, all in all it had gone okay. All of this was going pretty damn okay actually, better than he expected it to. Sure, he was fucking exhausted all the time between this and call center hell, but at least it kept him busy. He didn’t have much time for wallowing or whatever.

Yeah, shit had been pretty nice lately. Taako was trying not to think about it too much, since he didn’t want to jinx that shit, but still.

This job was okay, and he was starting to cook again. He didn’t even freak out when Angus had brought up the prospect of getting sick from his cooking.

Long lasting trauma and depression  _ who? _ Taako didn’t know them, he was fucking functioning baby.

Unlocking his apartment door, he ignored the mess and still packed boxes that would like to argue otherwise. He was a busy dude, so what if he’d rather rest when he got home than go through a bunch of his shit he didn’t need and had no idea where to put. Everything he used regularly he had on hand, and he had a general idea of what was in each box. It was an efficient storage system and he’d screw it up if he tried to mess with it and put everything away now. He wasn’t even sure if he had the space for it all. It sure didn’t feel like he did.

Heading into the kitchen, he still had a couple of the cookies left over from the batch he’d made for Angus and his dad. It was maybe more like Taako had gotten the leftovers rather than he’d given the leftovers to them, but small details. He ate one while he looked through his fridge to figure out what to actually make himself for dinner tonight. He wasn’t sure if he was feeling actual cooking again though. He guessed he could do one of the easy dinners he’d picked up, but those didn’t feel very appetizing either.

Taako was still debating when he felt his phone start to buzz in his pocket. Grabbing it, he saw Lup’s name on the screen and quickly answered it.

“It’s cha’ boy,” he said, giving up on figuring out what to cook for now and closing the fridge. He was pretty sure he still had some pasta leftover from the other night. He was out of sauce but maybe he could heat that up. Or he could just eat it cold.

That was edging pretty close to unhealthy depression meal, but it was homemade pasta, so Taako was pretty sure it didn’t count.

“Hey bro bro, how’s it going?” she asked, sounding pretty casual all things considered. So far Taako couldn’t tell if there was some sort of ulterior motive for her calling, but it was only a sentence in. Sure, most of the time he could tell from that, but it was whatever. He shrugged, falling in a heap on the couch.

“Pretty good, just got back from the tutoring gig,” he said, turning on the TV but immediately muting it as well. He didn’t need the noise, but it was nice to have something to look at while he talked.

“How’s that going? The rich brats driving you crazy yet?” she asked.

“Nah, not really. I’ve still just got the one kid, and he’s pretty chill. A total fucking nerd, I haven’t told you about him yet?” he asked, kind of surprised. He guessed he wasn’t giving Lup a lot of the details since he was worried shit might not end up going well, but so far, he was actually liking it.

“Not much nope. I was actually calling to see if you need a ride to the store, you didn’t stop by this weekend. You can tell me all about your new job while we shop,” she said, and oh right. He guessed he hadn’t actually told Lup or Barry what he’d been up to this weekend. He’d been pretty concerned with not bothering them that he hadn’t thought of filling them in.

“Oh, uh, I’m actually good on that front. I went by myself this weekend, stocked up for the whole week,” he said, and he could feel Lup’s surprise through the phone.

“Did you?” she asked, and she seemed kind of skeptical about that. “You been working out Koko? How’d you get all that stuff back home?” she asked, and okay, that was a fair question.

“I mean, I’m  _ pretty diesel,”  _ he said, ignoring the way she snorted. He was grinning as well at the ridiculousness of it. “But I had help getting the stuff back up to my apartment, if you must know,” he told her.

“Mags and Merle said they didn’t see you this weekend either,” she said, which Taako guessed didn’t surprise him. He knew they all tended to worry about him lately when he went off the grid like that, but still. He was  _ fine. _ Shit was getting better, they didn’t need to go talking behind his back.

“That’s because I’d hardly qualify them as  _ help _ when it comes to getting groceries. Those two cause more chaos than they’re worth,” he said, not meaning it much. They definitely were more trouble than they were worth, but he’d still fucking kill a man for those two idiots.

“Like you’re not just as bad when you three are together,” Lup said, which was fair. It was part of the reason he liked hanging around with those two fucks so much, not that he’d ever admit it to either of them. “So, that help you were talking about then?” she asked. Taako sighed dramatically, laying back along the couch.

“Well it’s not anyone’s business, but on the topic of that kid I’m tutoring, I ran into him and his dad while I was at the store. The kid must be like, a fucking boy scout or something cause they insisted on helping me take everything back to my apartment,” he explained.

“Oh, really now?” Lup asked, and there was a tone to her voice that Taako wasn’t thrilled about. Something really excited and probing. It wasn’t like there was anything he was keeping from her, so there was no reason to sound that jived.

“Yep, just some kid and his dad doing their fucking community service for the week I guess,” he said, trying to sound casual about this. He didn’t know why he had to  _ try _ with this, because it should be a casual thing. It  _ was _ a casual thing.

“You’ve really taken to this tutoring job, haven’t you?” she asked, and Taako shrugged.

“I mean, it’s not horrible. Like I said, I got lucky with the kid I’m stuck with for now. He’s not a bad egg,” he said. He could practically feel Lup grinning from here.

“That’s really good Ko, I’m glad you’re doing well,” she said, sounding genuinely pleased for him. There was also a hint of relief in her voice, and he guessed they’d been kind of worried about him after he was radio silent all weekend. He should’ve called sooner so they knew he wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere.

“It’s whatever, not like it’s something I can do for a career, but the extra cash is pretty nice,” he said, flipping through muted channels on the TV. Eventually he stopped on what looked to be one of a million home renovation shows.

“I mean, you  _ could _ do it as a career. If you wanted to go into teaching or something,” Lup said, but Taako rolled his eyes at the idea. Tutoring a single kid a few times a week was one thing, but actually being a teacher meant he had to be like, a functioning person. He was getting there on the functioning side for sure, but not so much on the person part.

“Yeah, I don’t really think that’s cha’ boy’s style,” he said, and he was pretty sure Lup wasn’t buying it, but it was whatever.

“If you say so bro bro,” she said, and at least she wasn’t pushing it for now. That probably meant it’d be something she’d hint at here and there for however long. Either until Taako either relented and they had an honest conversation about the idea, or Lup realized it wasn’t happening. Either of those things could take a long, long time.

“So, anything else you forget to mention about that kid you’re tutoring? Sounds like you’ve grown pretty fond of the squirt,” she said, and Taako shrugged.

“I mean, not really? He’s just a kid, I'm a dick but I'm not gonna be  _ too _ mean to a kid. He was all excited to see me at the store for some reason and him and his dad helped me take my shit back to the house, so I made them cookies for like, thanks for whatever,” he said.

“You baked for them?” Lup asked, not doing the best job of concealing the surprise in her voice. Which, Taako guessed was kind of fair. He hadn’t exactly been cooking for people like he used to lately, but it wasn’t a big deal.

“Yeah, I’d already been planning to do some cooking anyway, figured I could use the excuse,” he said.

“Are there any left?”  Lup asked, and Taako snorted, not too surprised.

“You can make your own damn food, you know that right? You’re a fucking grown ass woman,” Taako complained, not actually bothered by any of this.

“So, there  _ are _ some left,” Lup pressed, and that actually got a full laugh out of Taako.

“Yeah, if you want to come over here and eat me out of fucking house and home then sure, by all means,” he said, not quite able to keep the smile out of his voice. Sure, it hadn’t actually been that long since he’d last hung out with Lup, but it had still been  _ too long. _

“Sweet, catch ya in a bit bro,” she said, hanging up. Taako pushed himself up from where he’d ended up kind of splayed across the couch, doing a quick sweep of the room. It was kind of a disaster, but Lup was used to that.

Maybe while she was here though they could actually like, start working on putting some shit away. She wouldn’t be thrilled to help him organize his junk, but he doubted she’d refuse to help him either.

It wouldn’t take Lup long to get over here, her and Barry’s house wasn’t that far away by any means, so he didn’t have a chance to get much of a head start. Still, he started digging somewhat through the closest box, actually looking past the first layer of junk he’d ended up throwing on top to see what was actually packed away in there. It was mostly winter clothes, which he’d need soon, come to think of it. It was starting to get colder, and people would start to notice that he only had the one red hoodie to throw over his clothes when it got chill at night.

“The party has arrived,” Lup said, not bothering to knock or anything as she came into the apartment.

“The party better have brought either alcohol or pizza for me because otherwise she has no right to call herself the party,” Taako said, frowning at the box in front of him. He’d need to wash all of these clothes, but the washer was like, three floors down.

He could deal with this one later, once it was more pressing. For now he could work with the clothes he had on hand.

“The party will order you pizza, is that good enough for you?” she asked. Taako nodded, closing the flaps to the box and turning back to actually face his sister. Hopefully she’d think he’d just been looking for something and wouldn’t question it.

“It will appease me,” he said, and she rolled his eyes. Lup was already pulling the plastic wrap off of the plate of cookies he’d made yesterday, stuffing one in her mouth.

“So, how’ve you been Ko?” she asked, and Taako could see her looking him over carefully. “You’re looking good,” she added, and it was the first time she’d said that in a while. Well, no. It was the first time she’d said it in a while and it sounded 100% genuine.

“I always look good,” he answered easily, going over and snatching the next cooking she grabbed out of her hand. She pouted before grabbing the whole plate and heading to the couch with it. “But yeah, shit’s been whatever. Tiring. I’m always fucking working I swear, this weekend was the first decent time off I’ve had in forever,” he said, following her to the couch. He could see her already ordering a pizza on her phone, which was much appreciated.

“Tutoring on top of everything hasn’t been too much stress?” Lup asked, and Taako scoffed at the question.

“Nah, the worst it does is cut into some nap time I could be having instead,” he said, and then he snapped his fingers as a thought came to him. “Now there’s an idea. Maybe I can convince Ango to get all his work done early with the promise of naps during tutoring instead.” Lup snorted at that, shoving another cookie in her mouth. At this rate they were gonna finish them before the pizza arrived.

“I mean, it would work on me,” Lup said, and Taako nodded in agreement. “Ango?” she asked afterwards. Taako shrugged, reaching over and grabbing another cookie. Definitely gonna finish them before the pizza got there.

“Angus. The kid I’m teaching, come on Lulu, context clues,” he said. She rolled her eyes at that, thoroughly unimpressed.

“I figured as much,” she said, and then the annoyed look fell away into one of genuine fondness. “You’ve always been real good with kids, ya know?” she said.

“Shit, god. Is this your way of telling me that you and Barold have decided to get a gremlin? Cause can I say? It’s a bad one,” he said, genuine terror in his voice. Lup instantly started sputtering at the suggestion.

“What? That’s- no Ko, holy  _ shit _ that is not what’s happening here,” she said, and Taako instantly relaxed at that.

“Oh thank fuck,” he said, slumping back into the couch cushion.

“I cannot believe you actually thought that,” Lup said, looking at him incredulously.

“Hey! I can never  _ know _ with you two! You take a million years to actually admit you like each other, and then you get married before a guy can fucking blink. How am I supposed to know kids aren’t next on the menu at the ol’ Bluejeans household,” he said, waving his arms around dramatically. It wasn’t like Taako faulted them for getting hitched so fast. They’d been dating in all but name long enough that it wasn’t like everyone didn’t already know it was going to work out.

It had still taken him off guard was all. Put some shit in perspective that he’d maybe been trying not to deal with at the time.

“I was just saying that you’ve got a knack for teaching and you should embrace that shit bro. Then you had to make it all  _ weird,”  _ she said, the complaint a bit too dramatic for him to think it was serious.

“If I’ve got a knack for anything it’s making shit weird. If you think this was an awkward turn of conversation, I called Ango’s pop daddy when we met at the store. Now  _ that _ was weird,” he said, grinning brightly when Lup choked on her cookie.

“Holy fucking shit. You didn’t,” she said, and Taako just let his grin widen even more. “Oh my god, you  _ did,” _ she said, falling back in laughter.

“What can I say? You know how shit just slips out,” he said casually, quite pleased at leaving Lup beside herself in laughter.

“You’re the worst person,” she said, still clearly delighted. “So, like, was he hot or what?” she asked once she finally managed to control her laughter. Taako shrugged, looking at his nails in a still hyper-casual way.

“I mean, naturally. If you typed ‘tall dark and handsome’ into google you’d probably get his picture,” he said, and then he sat up some, pulling out his phone. “Wait, gimme a second I’m actually gonna try that,” he added, ignoring Lup snorting and rolling her eyes. “Aw, nevermind. Way too many white guys,” he complained, putting the phone back down.

“You should put that on a pillow,” Lup said, and Taako nodded in agreement. “So, he single or what?” she asked.

“I assume so. Angus said it’s always just been him and his dad so there definitely isn’t a mom in the mix at least,” he said, although that part wasn’t too important in his opinion. He wasn’t actually vying to get with the dude in any capacity. Sometimes it was just fun to fluster people who weren’t used to dealing with all of him.

“Gotta say babe, never realized you were into the single dad thing. Like, I’m your sister and I support you, but you do realize that if you marry this guy and become a step-dad you  _ legally _ have to change your name to Ron,” she said, and Taako wasn’t able to hold in the bark of laughter that got out of him.

“I can  _ assure _ you that is not a problem we will ever have to deal with. Pretty sure I scared that pretty face off with the whole daddy comment in the middle of a goddamn Ralph’s on a Saturday morning,” he said, which was true. Even if he was looking to date at the moment, which he wasn’t, he sure did shoot that boat in the foot.

“And yet he still helped you take your groceries back home,” Lup countered, and Taako shrugged at that.

“I’ll admit, that was mostly Angus. Like I said, kid is spiritually if not legally a boy scout,” he said, Lup raising an eyebrow at that.

“Is there a legal process to becoming a boy scout?” she asked, and he shrugged.

“Fuck if I know.”

“Fair enough.”

The pizza arrived pretty soon after that, distracting from the conversation which Taako was fine with. There wasn’t much else to say on that matter, since like he said, he wasn’t actually interested in Angus’s dad. Like, he kept thinking of him as  _ Angus’s dad, _ for one thing. That probably made it weird, right? It definitely made it weird.

That wasn’t even getting into the fact that he seemed all like, professional and a functioning member of society and junk. Pretty sure the dude could get some better prospects than the disaster person who worked part time as his kid’s tutor.

It was a good thing Lup hadn’t gotten on him more about this junk. She would definitely have a bone to pick with some of those thoughts, which he certainly didn’t need.

Thankfully, they didn’t end up delving into any of that stuff. Spending the evening with Lup ended up being greatly needed, the two of them talking bullshit and eating more pizza than was strictly necessary. Sure, Barry was his best friend and Taako loved having him around, the same went for the rest of the gaggle of idiots that had attached to him barnacle like over the years.

But sometimes it was nice having it just be him and Lup again. Helped him recenter or some other touchy bullshit like that.

When she left, he felt that little bit more like a person again.

Sure, work at the call center the next day did everything in its power to try and squash those feelings. They still managed to be there somewhat when he came back into tutoring on Wednesday.

Angus came in right on time, as was typical for him. Taako had thought that first day he’d been avoiding it. Knowing him better now he was pretty sure he’d genuinely been lost or whatever he’d said the problem had been.

“Good afternoon sir!” he said, putting his backpack up on the table and pulling out his usual seat. There were a couple in here, like it was set up for larger study groups. He and Angus had managed to find the ones that looked least likely to fall apart at the slightest touch.

“How’s it hanging my dude?” he asked, wondering if Angus had a lot of work today. If he didn’t, he might actually try out that whole nap idea he’d talked about with Lup. He could certainly use one, and he got the feeling Angus was one of those overachiever kids who didn’t take a lot of naps. He seemed a lot less stressed out since he turned that paper in too, he probably deserved a nap.

“Good sir! Oh, my dad wanted me to tell you thank you for the cookies. They were really delicious,” he said, pulling out the tupperware Taako had given him the cookies in and handing it over. It was empty and Taako snorted.

“Did you seriously eat all of em?” he asked.

“Not at once. Or by myself, pretty sure my dad ate half of them,” Angus said. Taako found himself smiling as he shoved the tupperware back into his own bag. 

“Fucking fair enough little man. Well, let your dad know that if he ever wants anymore sweets he can hit me up. Always need the excuse to bake, and I’d prefer hearing whatever praise he might have in person,” Taako said, mostly joking.

“Would you like me to give him your phone number then Mr. Taako?” Angus asked, his tone cheerful and innocent.  _ Too _ cheerful and innocent. “Actually, it’s probably a good idea that I get your phone number anyway. In case I ever need to cancel tutoring for any reason,” he added, still in that same tone.

“Uhuh,” Taako said, letting himself sound as suspicious as he felt. “Yeah, alright. Here’s my number, you can give it to your dad, for business. Like if you need to call out of tutoring, strictly business,” he added, writing down his number and handing the slip of paper to Angus. The kid was grinning way too much to not be plotting something.

“Or if we would like some more cookies, as long as it’s not too much trouble, right?” he asked, and Taako laughed, nodding despite himself.

“Yeah, that too I guess,” he agreed. Angus actually ended up having homework he needed to get done, so Taako didn’t suggest nap time quite yet. Which he supposed wasn’t too bad, he didn’t really need one at the moment.

All in all, Taako was actually feeling pretty good. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i gotta say that the story about eating a whole roll of girl scout cookies you're allergic to and then casually finger-gunning your way to the nurse's office for your epipen is a thing a guy i actually knew in highschool did. also, depression taako is just me. 
> 
> i added angus having adhd as an actual tag on this fic btw! i saw kinda nervous to at first since i don't have adhd and i didn't want to portray it inaccurately but since so many of you have commented on him being a Mood i thought i might as well. 
> 
> as always, thanks for reading and i hope you enjoyed~


	8. Feeling Flustered In Your Area

Kravitz waited in the car outside of Angus’s school. He was starting to get into the new routine for tutoring, and hopefully once things settled at work it would just be another thing. He was pretty sure Angus would get over any childish notions he had about Kravitz possibly having a crush on his tutor soon.

And if he didn’t, Kravitz figured he’d only have to deal with it for the rest of this school year at most. As much as Angus liked this tutor, even if he ended up needing one again next year he figured it wouldn’t end up being the same guy.

He’d been worried at first that Angus would hate the tutoring, but now he was more concerned that he’d be disappointed whenever it came to an end or he had to get a new tutor. Kravitz pushed that thought out of his mind for now though. They were still pretty early into the year after all. It wasn’t anything he needed to concern himself with for now.

Kravitz watched as Angus came out of the school with his Taako. It didn’t seem like he was coming over to the car today. Kravitz was a little relieved when he saw Angus wave at the man and he started walking off in the direction of his apartment. It wasn’t that he disliked Taako any, he was just… awkward. Kravitz was, that is. Not Taako. He didn’t seem bothered enough about anything to really be awkward.

“Hey dad,” Angus said as he hopped into the passenger seat, shrugging his bookbag off and putting it down by his feet.

“Hey, how was school today?” he asked, not quite pulling the car out yet. It looked like Angus was looking around for something, so he waited.

“Really good, here,” Angus said, and then he held out a small slip of paper. Kravitz took it, and from a glance it was obvious it was a phone number. There wasn’t any name or explanation written with it though.

“What’s this?” he asked, sounding about as befuddled as he felt. He had one idea about what this could be, and he wasn’t very happy with it.

“Mr. Taako’s phone number,” Angus said, grinning brightly as he confirmed Kravitz’s fear. He sighed heavily, folding the paper up and turning to Angus with a look he hoped was serious.

“Angus dear, I’m…  _ glad, _ that you want me to be happy, but this isn’t… I specifically asked you not to do things like this,” he said. The smile on Angus’s face faded quickly, and Kravitz felt bad about that, he really did. He shouldn’t encourage this though. Sure, it was pretty cute how Angus was trying to play match maker, but he figured it would end in disappointment if he tried to play along.

“It was just a joke,” Angus muttered, and even though he wasn’t sure how much he believed that it was still a bit of a relief. “I mean, it really is his number. But it’s for like, letting him know if I can’t make it to tutoring,” he clarified.

“Oh, okay that actually is an important thing to have,” Kravitz said, definitely feeling better about how Angus had gotten the number now. Taako must've thought it was a serious request and hadn’t realized Angus was fucking with him. Taking out his own phone, Kravitz quickly put the number in. Under the name he wrote ‘Angus’s Tutor’ since it wasn’t like they were friends. It’d probably be weird to put him in by first name, right?

“He also said we can hit him up if we ever want more cookies,” Angus added as Kravitz finally pulled out from the front of the school. He couldn’t help but chuckled a little at that, no intentions on actually following through with that. He wouldn’t want to like, demand food from a guy he didn’t know.

Maybe if he let him pay for some? They had honestly been some of the best cookies Kravitz had ever had, and he hadn’t even had any fresh. He certainly wouldn’t mind paying for something like that.

“Well, that’s quite nice of him to offer,” Kravitz said. As they drove home Angus talked about the rest of his day, and it did seem like he was doing a bit better lately. He was a little less guarded when Kravitz asked him about his assignments and such.

He was glad this was helping. Angus had been so excited about skipping a grade and Kravitz hated seeing that excitement turn to fear and anxiety. He didn't have any idea how to fix it either, for a while there.

“So, how was work today?” Angus asked as they pulled into the driveway. Kravitz let out a long sigh, he hadn’t even been meaning to. “Ah, that bad?” he said, wincing in an exaggerated manner.

“It was fine,” Kravitz insisted as they headed inside. It  _ was, _ even if he was incredibly frustrated by the whole thing. Whoever had been messing around with their systems had definitely realized that they’d knew by this point.

Their online records dating back several months had  _ changed. _ He’d noticed it this morning. He was just trying to double check to make sure the information he was putting in  _ now _ was correct. He’d only been able to confirm that someone had messed with it because he’d been a little paranoid and had printed out copies of everything. Julia liked to tease him for being old fashioned, but he worked better when he could actually write with paper and pencil on things.

“No new progress?” Angus asked, and Kravitz shook his head, heading to the kitchen and taking a quick look in the freezer. Okay, they still had one more dinner left, he’d either have to go to the store tomorrow or they’d eat out.

“The opposite actually,” he said with a sigh. “It’s fine though, we know for sure it’s someone in our systems now. Which is unfortunate,” he added, not wanting Angus to get too worried. He knew Angus was curious about it all too though, so it wouldn’t hurt to fill him in on little things here and there.

“No idea who though?” Angus asked, and Kravitz shook his head.

“No, but honestly there aren’t a lot of suspects, or uh, people who have that kind of access and skill. So hopefully it won’t be too much longer,” Kravitz told him, and that was true at least. He wasn’t  _ happy _ about having to fire someone over this, but it had caused him such a headache already he wouldn’t be too torn up over it.

Well, being fired would be the least of their worries. They’d been squirreling away a pretty damn large sum of money over the past several months, and were falsifying documents now as well. They were probably going to end up going to jail once they finally caught them.

“So, who are the current suspects?” Angus asked, trying to sound casual about it. Kravitz could tell that it was anything but casual, the curiosity barely concealed.

“Angus, I don’t want you spying on my co-workers. Again,” Kravitz said, not quite able to sound as annoyed as he wanted to. To be fair, nothing bad had happened last time and the people Angus had decided to give a bit of extra attention to all took it in good fun. Kravitz wasn’t sure how much that would be the case this time though, especially since everything was so tense right now.

“It’s not spying, it’s just some light detective work,” Angus insisted.

“Well, I’d rather you not do any light detective work on my co-workers. We have it all under control,” Kravitz said, reaching over and ruffling Angus’s hair. He felt like he was telling the truth. It was only a matter of time before they caught whoever was doing this, and it seemed like they’d managed to catch it before they managed to do any  _ permanent _ damage to the company.

“Fine,” Angus said, not sounding too pleased by that. Kravitz wasn’t entirely convinced that he would let this go, he was always a little too curious for his own good.

“I’ll let you know when dinner’s done,” Kravitz said. Angus nodded, grabbing a snack out of the cabinet before heading to his room. Kravitz headed to his office, pulling out the stacks of paper he’d brought back here to work on. He really was thankful he’d gone and print them all out. Now he needed to see how much exactly they had changed since he made those print outs.

Kravitz wasn’t sure how long he’d been working for when his phone started to buzz. Checking the number, he quickly answered when he saw it was his mother.

“Hello dear, sorry if I’m bothering you,” she said, and Kravitz put down the paper he’d been comparing with what the online reports were saying.

“No bother, is everything alright?” he asked. It was always hard to tell with her, she was good at masking her worry. Kravitz would say that he’d gotten pretty good at figuring out when things were bothering her though and he knew that everything that’d been happening was putting a lot of stress on everyone.

“Yes, everything’s fine. I heard that you figured out someone’s still actively changing information?” she asked, and Kravitz nodded, tapping his pencil as he spoke.

“Yeah, it’s- they’ve definitely been tampered with since I printed everything out the day we realized something was wrong. I was just looking to see exactly how much they changed,” he explained. He heard her humming thoughtfully on the other end of the line, and Kravitz could tell she was debating something.

“I really hate to ask you to come in again this weekend, but-” she started, and Kravitz quickly cut in.

“It’s fine, honestly. The faster we can figure this all out the better,” he said, and he heard her sigh in relief somewhat at that.

“Thank you dear. Istus has already said that she doesn’t mind having Angus over again if he’d like,” she said, and Kravitz nodded.

“I’ll send him a text right after this letting him know,” Kravitz assured her.

“Sounds good,” she said, and Kravitz really did hope they figured this out soon. He didn’t mind spending the occasional extra time at work, but this was definitely more than usual. “Please do try and relax at some point,” his mother added.

“I’m plenty relaxed,” he said, choosing to ignore the disbelieving hum from his mother. “Alright, talk to you later, love you,” he added.

“Love you too dear,” she said, and with that Kravitz ended the call. Quickly switching back over to his contacts, he tapped on Angus’s entry to start texting him.

‘Grandma just called, would you mind heading over to their house this weekend? I need to head into work to handle a few things’ he quickly typed up and sent. Turning back to his paper readouts, Angus’s response took a bit longer than he expected.

‘Either ur in possession (HA!) of one hell of an ouija board my guy, a real GHO ya know? Or you got the wrong number’ came the reply. Which… definitely wasn’t Angus. Glancing up at the contact, Kravitz cursed out loud. The only good thing about this was that he was alone in his office and could therefore hide his face in his hands as much as he wanted.

Of  _ course _ he selected ‘Angus’s Tutor’ by mistake. He’d had the number in his phone for an  _ hour. _

‘I’m so sorry, this is Angus’s father. I meant to text him but I selected your number by mistake’ he sent. That should be pretty much the end of the conversation, but despite himself he sent another quick text. He knew Angus was always too curious for his own good, but so was he. ‘GHO?’

‘Oh shit the kid actually gave you my number. Sup daddy’

‘Genuine Hasbro Ouija’ came two texts in quick succession. Kravitz wasn’t sure how he managed to be even more capable of taking him off guard through text. Maybe because he hadn’t been expecting it? It was still baffling and it felt like his face was a million degrees.

‘It’s Kravitz. Please just Kravitz’ he sent back.

‘Too late’ same the reply, and there was a photo attached to it. Kravitz was almost worried to look, but it was a screen shot. Specifically one of a contact with Kravitz’s number labeled ‘Daddy McDonald.' It was ridiculous, and despite himself Kravitz laughed.

‘No, please god change that’ he sent, trying to bite down a smile that was stubbornly worming its way onto his face. He was extremely lucky that Angus wasn’t in the room at the moment or else he’d never heard the end of this.

‘Can’t it’s locked in there forever’ Taako replied, and Kravitz rolled his eyes at that. He didn’t know why Taako was messing with him like this, other than he supposed it was his sense of humor. It didn’t truly bother him so much as it left him flustered, so he guessed it wasn’t that bad.

It was still pretty bad though, because like. It just was.

Despite his better judgment Kravitz found himself heading back into his contacts. He needed to change Taako’s contact name anyway, since he didn’t want to risk doing this again and he texted Angus way too much to trust himself. After a moment of hesitation (and also a moment to figure out how to take a screen shot) he sent the changed name back to Taako.

‘In that case I guess this is fine too,’ he sent along with the image, showing the contact now as ‘Free Cookies- and tutoring.' Taako’s next reply took a minute, and Kravitz was suddenly very afraid that he’d overstepped some boundary. Angus had said that he’d offered, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.

‘Holy shit, so you can be fun after all! Fuck yeah’ came Taako’s reply, and Kravitz relaxed some at that. Not a lot, but he wasn’t as worried that he’d taken some great offense to the name. Quickly another text from Taako came in. ‘We’ll see what we can do. Free cookies are earned.’

‘Not quite free then, are they?’ Kravitz send back, and there was definitely a dumb smile stuck on his face now. He guessed it’d been a while since he’d joked around like this with someone. It was just joking though, Kravitz tried to remind himself. Angus made a lot of jokes about crushes, but that wasn’t actually a thing.

And even if it was, he’d seen seen Taako with someone who was definitely at  _ least _ his boyfriend. Plus, Kravitz didn’t have time to start dating! He had Angus to take care of, plus there was everything going on at work. Oh god, he definitely couldn’t start dating with the whole debockle at work, and-

Oh god, he sounded like the workaholic single woman in every lifetime movie. Okay, no, he wasn’t going down that logic anymore. He just wasn’t interested in Taako, and Taako wasn’t interested in him. Simple as that.

‘Monetarily free, which is the only kind of free that matters’ Taako sent back. Then another quick text. ‘Hey shouldnt you be asking ango about his grandma or whatever?’

‘Oh shit. Right, thanks for the reminder’ Kravitz sent him, switching over to actually text Angus about going to his grandma’s this weekend. Taako texted him again while he was doing that, but Kravitz waited until he finished sending the message to Angus before looking.

‘Not a problem my dude. Happy to help ;)’

If Kravitz didn’t know any better, he’d almost think he was being flirted with right now. He did know better though, so he pushed those thoughts out of him mind. Either way he wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he just didn’t say anything. It was a good enough stopping point in the conversation, and he’d already been talking to Taako for much longer than he’d intended to.

Any talking to Taako had been more than intended, but he supposed he could have stopped a lot sooner than he actually did.

Angus’s reply came quickly, saying he wouldn’t mind heading to his grandma’s this weekend. That was a relief. As much as he knew Angus was getting older and was very responsible for his age, he still didn’t like leaving him alone for too long if he could help it.

With all of that squared away Kravitz tried to get back to work. It was important to figure out what the right numbers were supposed to be, even if Kravitz wished they could find the person who’d done this to begin with.

The rest of the week passed relatively uneventfully. They were getting close though, Kravitz was sure of it. He was trying not to spend too much of his time single-mindedly focused on work, but the list of possible suspects was getting narrower and narrower. In fact, Kravitz was feeling pretty damn certain on who it was. They needed proof though, which was a little harder to come by.

They were almost there though. Kravitz had been intending to go to work this weekend and not leave until they had what they needed. He’d already talked it over with Istus and Angus, and they were both fine with having a sleepover.

And Kravitz had promised Angus that with this it would be over and he would take a good long break from overtime. He really did hate getting so wrapped up in his work like this while Angus was struggling with school. Sure, the tutoring was helping a lot it seemed, but he still wanted to be there as much as he could.

When his phone started ringing Friday afternoon, Kravitz didn’t think anything of it. Even when he saw it was Istus’s number, it wasn’t any sort of red flag. He figured she just wanted to know what time they were coming over or wanted to tell him about what she had planned for the weekend.

“Kravitz dear, there’s been a change of plans,” his mother’s voice said right when he answered the phone.

“I’m fine, it’s- oh, stop your fussing,” Istus’s protest came in weakly over the line. Kravitz frowned, because she certainly didn’t sound fine.

“Is everything alright?” he asked, starting to pace. He’d just gotten back from picking Angus up at school. Angus was currently pouring himself a drink and watching him with obvious curiosity.

“Everything’s fine. Istus just woke up with a nasty cold this morning and refuses to rest,” his mother explained.

“You really aren’t one to talk darling,” he heard Istus comment, which Kravitz knew was fair. He was still frowning though, but he took a quick moment to mouth ‘it’s okay’ to Angus, who was trying his best to listen to the other side of the call.

“Do you guys need anything? I can run up to the store real quick, I just picked Angus up from tutoring,” he offered.

“No, we’re good but thank you. I’m afraid Angus can’t spend the weekend here now though,” she said, and he winced at that, glancing over at Angus. Right, that would be an issue.

“I just don’t want him catching this,” Istus added, and Kravitz nodded.

“Right, no that’s fair. Tell Istus not to worry about it and to focus on getting better,” Kravitz said.

“I will, don’t worry about coming in this weekend,” his mother said, and Kravitz sighed, running a hand down his face.

“No, no it’s- I want to get this done with. Don’t worry, I’ll think of something,” he insisted. He had no idea what he would think of, but he would figure this out.

“Alright, but know it’s no pressure, and tell Angus we’ll make it up to him,” his mother said.

“I will, tell Istus to get some rest,” he said. Hanging up with a sigh, Kravitz took a moment to rub at his temples. He knew he usually didn’t have the best luck in the world, but this was extremely frustrating.

“What’s going on?” Angus asked.

“Mommom Istus came down with a cold, so you’re not going to be able to stay the weekend with her,” Kravitz explained. He figured Angus had managed to deduce most of that with what he’d overheard, because he didn’t seem very surprised. He actually looked pretty casual. Too casual.

“Oh, I guess I can stay home then,” he said, and ah, there it was.

“No, Angus,” Kravitz said with a sigh.

“I’ve stayed home by myself before, it’ll be fine,” he said. That was partially true, Kravitz had to leave him home alone for a few hours here and there before.

“Not overnight though, I’m not leaving you by yourself for the whole weekend,” Kravitz insisted. Angus frowned a little at that, but he didn’t seem too torn up about it. Kravitz knew he wasn’t the type of kid to try and throw a party when he was home alone or anything like that, but that really wasn’t why he didn’t want to leave him on his own.

“But you gotta go to work,” Angus said, and Kravitz nodded. “I can come with you,” he offered, and Kravitz was almost considering it.

“I don’t want to make you sit in a boring office all weekend,” he said, and Angus shrugged.

“That’s fine. I can entertain myself, I’ll bring some homework or something,” he said, once again in too casual a voice.

“Once again, I don’t want you spying on my co-workers Angus,” Kravitz said, and Angus pouted at that, crossing his arms.

“Not even the one who stole a whole buncha money and is the reason you have to go in extra in the first place?” he pressed, and Kravitz shook his head.

“Especially not that one,” he said. Okay, he had to have some other option here. There  _ had _ to be someone else who would watch Angus, right? Kravitz had friends. There was Julia but, damn it, she’d probably be at work this weekend too. Kravitz pulled out his phone, scrolling through his contacts for someone he could ask. There were decidedly fewer options than he’d been hoping for. Shit.

His finger paused over one name. It was a bad idea, he didn’t really know him at all. Angus liked him though, he probably wouldn’t even put up a fuss at the suggestion.

He supposed it wouldn’t hurt to at least  _ ask.  _ It wasn’t like he had many other options.

“Who are you calling?” Angus asked as soon as Kravitz had hit the dial button.

“No one,” Kravitz said, walking off towards the living room. He was not surprised in the slightest when Angus followed right along after him. After a few rings there was a click, and well, he was in too deep now.

“Hello Taako? Sorry for bothering you,” he said, putting on his most polite and formal voice.

_ “Taako?” _ Angus asked in a not very quiet whisper, a look of delighted disbelief on his face. Kravitz tried to wave him away, but it was very clear that he wasn’t heading anywhere.

“Not a bother at all homie. Everything cool? Ango lose something at tutoring?” Taako asked, and Kravitz shook his head even though he couldn’t see him.

“No, nothing like that. It’s- okay, I need to ask you something, and it’s going to sound like something else but I swear it’s not that,” Kravitz said, feeling the need to heavily preface this. Angus was sitting on the couch watching him and halfheartedly trying to muffle his laughter.

“Well shit, now you got me curious. Ask away,” Taako said.

“Are you doing anything this weekend?” Kravitz asked, trying not to wince as he did. Taako was very quiet for a moment, and he could only image why. Hopefully it was to look at his schedule.

“Uh, no actually. Got a brief respite from the drudgery of capitalism, why?” Taako finally said, which was honestly a better response than Kravitz had been expecting.

“So, you know how Angus was supposed to go stay at his grandma’s this weekend?” Kravitz said.

“Wait, dad why does Mr. Taako know that? Wait, holy shit have you guys  _ actually _ been talking?” Angus asked.

“Don’t say shit,” Kravitz said, covering the phone with his hand for a moment, not that it probably did much good. Especially because he could hear Taako snickering on the other end.

“Yeah, I remember that. What about it?” Taako asked, still sounding pretty amused by this whole thing.

“Angus’s grandmother came down with a nasty cold this morning and isn’t going to be able to watch him, and I’ve been having some trouble finding a replacement,” Kravitz explained.

“Oh,” Taako said, sounding decidedly less amused now. “And uh, I guess you’re wondering if ol’ Taako can watch the kid for a couple hours?” he asked.

“More like the whole weekend,” Kravitz said. “Not for free, of course, and I completely understand if you can’t. I know it’s a big ask rather last minute,” he quickly added when Taako didn’t say anything.

“No, that’s not- ugh, just, what times? Estimated drop off and pick up?” Taako asked, which genuinely surprised Kravitz. He wasn’t expecting him to even consider it for a good while there.

“I’d be dropping him off around 7:30am Saturday and picking him up around 8pm Sunday,” Kravitz said. Angus was watching him intently, looking as surprised as Kravitz felt.

“Youch, early start, huh?” Taako said.

“He’ll probably fall right back to sleep for a couple of hours,” Kravitz said. He could practically feel Taako debating silently on the other end of the line, before sighing heavily.

“Yeah, why not I don’t got any other plans. And don’t fucking worry about paying, just like, chip in twenty bucks for some pizza or take out or whatever,” Taako said, and Kravitz felt his shoulders slump in relief.

“Thank you so much Taako, you’re a lifesaver,” Kravitz said.

“I’m pretty spectacular, you got that right,” he said, which got a chuckle out of Kravitz. He quickly stopped when he saw the look Angus was giving him. “You remember how to get to my place or you need the address?”

“If you could send the address just to be safe it’d be a big help,” Kravitz said.

“You got it,” Taako said. “And uh, guess see y’all tomorrow then, bright and early,” he added, sounding almost nervous. Kravitz couldn’t blame him, this was definitely a weird situation.

“Right, see you then,” Kravitz said before hanging up and letting out a long sigh. When he turned to look at Angus he had a huge, shit eating grin on his face. Kravitz couldn’t even properly defend himself from it.

“You’re going to stay at Mr. Taako’s for the weekend,” he said, trying to get some semblance of control over the situation.

“Mhmm,” Angus hummed, still looking entirely too pleased with this situation.

“And that settles that, I suppose,” he said, just sort of standing there now not sure what to do. “I’m going to call your grandmas and tell them I got it taken care of.”

“So have you guys been talking a  _ lot _ or-” Angus started to ask.

“Calling your grandmas!” Kravitz insisted, cutting him off. Angus dissolved into giggles, and Kravitz sighed. He couldn’t exactly be annoyed with seeing Angus so delighted. So it was fine.

All of this was just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, still been far too long, but i actually got another chapter out. gonna try and _at least_ update this one once a month. Hopefully more often than that, but my schedule's about to get a lot busier, so we'll see. I love writing these disaster boys though, so hopefully more frequent updates. 
> 
> as always, thanks for reading and i hope you enjoyed~


	9. Feeling Curious In Your Area

Angus had not expected for this to be his weekend plan. He might have had a little bit of trouble sleeping the night before due to excitement. He was also a little nervous, because as much as he had fun and liked Taako in tutoring, it was another thing to be spending the whole weekend with him.

Excited was definitely the more prominent emotion at play here though. That and having fun teasing his dad about it until he got shooed off to bed. He insisted that he’d texted Mr. Taako their weekend plans instead by mistake, and it seemed like he was telling the truth.

It was still real funny though. Plus, his dad was more flustered about it than he would be if he truly wasn’t interested in Mr. Taako at all.

Which was still kind of a weird thing to think about. Angus figured that would be a good use for this weekend though. It would be much easier to get a gauge for his personality and if Angus actually thought his dad would be happy dating him, and if  _ Angus _ would be happy with them together.

He wanted this to work, but not if it would actually be a bad idea.

Because he hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep last night though, he was not very happy to be waking up so early. Angus groaned when his dad came into his room and flicked the lights on.

“Come on dear, you need to get dressed,” his dad said, poking his head into the room for the second or third or fourth time while Angus stayed in bed. Instead of answering with words he make a vaguely positive sounding noise and shifted somewhat. He heard his dad sigh slightly, which was fair. They'd been at this for a little while now. 

“You can sleep some more once we get to Taako’s,” he insisted, and very reluctantly Angus moved so that he was at least sitting up in bed.

“’M awake,” he mumbled, rubbing at his eyes.

“Good morning,” his dad said, coming into the room and ruffling his hair. It was probably already messed up but even still Angus tried to swat his hands away. Once he stopped messing with his hair Angus watched him move to grab the bag he’d packed the night before. “I’m gonna go put this in the car, get dressed,” he said. Angus nodded sleepily.

Once his dad was out of the room Angus forced himself to get out of bed and get dressed. He’d put everything he’d need for the weekend in the bag before he went to sleep, but he still did a quick check around the room to make sure he had everything. It wasn’t that big of a deal when he was at his grandma’s, because he had a lot of spare stuff over there. He wouldn’t have that at Taako’s though.

It should be fine though. He was too tired to care if it wasn’t, but that was why he made sure to pack the night before. Once he was dressed he headed out into the living room, slumping down on the couch and closing his eyes for a minute. A bit later, Angus wasn’t sure how long exactly, his dad was shaking his shoulder and pushing a warm poptart into his hand.

“We need to get going soon Angus,” he said, and he nodded, blinking his eyes open.

“I’m ready to go whenever,” he mumbled, taking a bite of the poptart. His dad hummed, not sounding very convinced of that. Angus wasn’t sure why, he was just gonna keep sleeping at Taako’s for a bit anyway. He didn’t pay attention as his dad walked out of the room and then came back a few moments later.

“You forgot your shoes,” he said, clearly amused as he handed them over. Angus took the shoes and slowly put them on, and he guessed his dad’s skepticism about him being ready to go before was somewhat warranted.

“Kay, I’m good,” he said. His dad didn’t argue this time, and Angus was awake enough to at least walk out to the car by himself, still nibbling on his poptart. He still ended up falling half asleep in the car by the time they got to Mr. Taako’s apartment complex. His dad must’ve thought he was fully asleep, and maybe he was more asleep than he wanted to admit. He didn’t notice they were there or that his dad had gotten out of the car and over to his side until he was lifting him up out of the seat.

“I can walk,” he tried to say, but it sort of came out as an intelligible mumble.

“You didn’t sleep at all last night, did you?” his dad asked, slowly heading up the stairs of the complex.

“Did to,” Angus muttered, not making any attempt to get down. He was still dozing slightly, only jolted out of it somewhat when they reached Mr. Taako’s apartment and he heard his dad knock on the door. He still wasn’t making any move to put him down and Angus didn’t have time on insisting he do before the door was thrown open.

“You’re here! I mean, you said you would be here and now you are so that makes sense, so uh- wait shit, is he asleep?” Taako said, the second part said much quieter than the first.

“’M wake,” Angus muttered, and he didn’t even sound all that convincing to himself. Still, he was awake enough to listen to his dad and Taako talking.

“He’ll probably knock out for a few more hours. Are you  _ sure _ this is okay?” his dad asked, stepping into the apartment.

“Yeah no it’s totally chill. He got like, any sort of special diet I should know about? Allergies? How many times should I walk and water him a day?” Taako asked, and his dad laughed at that.

“No, you should be fine. I’m sure he’ll let you know if he wants to go outside,” he said. Then Angus could feel his dad shifting him somewhat, and yeah, he'd been holding him for a while now. Normally he’d be talking a lot more during something like this, or at least demand to be let down, but he was comfortable.

“I hate to run so soon, but I really do need to get to work. Is there a place I can, uh,” and Angus felt himself being lifted somewhat. The fact that he hadn’t opened his eyes the entire time they’d been in here probably wasn’t helping them think he was awake.

“Oh! Right yeah no, this way. Got a spare room back here. My sister and the rest of my bum friends are always around and I’d like to have my couch to actually sit on sometimes, ya know?” Taako said, leading them further back into the apartment. “Not this weekend though! Not gonna have any fuckin, wild parties while watching your kid, I swear,” he added quickly. Angus felt himself get placed down on a bed, and then heard the small thunk of his bag placed on the floor close by.

“Of course,” his dad said, and Angus wasn’t awake enough to tell if he sounded like he believed that or not. “I’ll see you Sunday Angus, be good for Mr. Taako,” he added, leaning down to ruffle his hair again.

“Mhmm,” he mumbled, not bothering to form proper words. With that he heard footsteps walking away and then a door quietly closing. There were some hushed voices then, still clearly Taako and his dad. Angus wanted to get up and try to listen in on what they were saying, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to. Before he knew it he’d managed to fall into a deep sleep.

When he woke up it was a lot later in the day. Digging around in his bag, he quickly found his cell phone to check the time, since the room he was in didn’t seem to have a clock in it. The room was pretty plain all things considered. It definitely looked like a guest room, no real personalizing features. It was clean though, with about five large cardboard boxes carefully stacked up in the corner.

His phone said it was 11:23am, which was a bit later than he typically slept for sure. He guessed he needed it, but he hoped Taako didn’t think he was lazy sleeping in this late. Making sure his shoes were off, he hadn’t even noticed whenever his dad must’ve taken them before he left, he got out of bed.

Peaking his head out the door, he didn’t see Taako right away. There was a hallway with two other doors, his bedroom and a bathroom if Angus had to guess, but they were both closed.

Heading down the hallway, he could start to hear the sounds of someone moving around now. It led out into the living room area, and he could see across it into the kitchen where Taako was. He was hunched over the stove, cooking something that smelled amazing. He hadn’t seemed to notice Angus any yet, and he took that time to quickly glance around the place. He’d been too sleepy to get a proper look when they were coming in.

It was cleaner than the last time they were here, although there were still boxes stacked up in places. Those were all now nicely placed in corners and behind chairs instead of all over the place though. The place was obviously pretty well lived in still, and if Angus had to guess he’d probably been staying here a while. Which did make it strange that he hadn’t unpacked everything yet.

“Good morning sir,” Angus said, stepping out from the hallway and into the living room. Taako jolted, definitely not having noticed him before then, but seemed to recover quickly enough.

“Oh hey, he lives,” he joked, turning back towards the stove. Angus walked over, pulling out a stool that was set under the counter and climbing up to sit down.

“Thanks for having me this weekend Mr. Taako, I’m sorry it was so last minute,” Angus said. As excited as he was about all of this, he could admit that it probably wasn’t how Taako had hoped to spend his weekend. He just shrugged though, flipping the food he was cooking over in the pan. Angus could see a plate next to him, already stacked with quite a few pancakes.

“Not a problem my dude, didn’t have shit to do this weekend anyway,” he said, and then he paused in his cooking and turned towards Angus. “I cannot censor myself for an entire weekend though, so let’s keep that between the two of us and uh, I’ll let you say fuck,” he said.

“We’re not at school sir, I don’t need your permission to curse,” Angus said simply, and then shrugged. “But fuck it, works for me,” he added, which got a sharp bark of laughter out of Mr. Taako.

“Shit, yeah alright, we’re in agreement then, hell ya,” Taako said, taking the pancake he’d just finished and a couple off of the stack and putting them on a plate. “Got a couple different kinds there, your dad said there’s no allergies so congrats, you get to be a guinea pig,” he added.

Angus didn’t see any problem with that, starting on the first pancake in front of him. It was delicious, and he quickly began shoveling more into his mouth. Taako put a few on a plate for himself and started eating as well, and whenever Angus glanced over at him he looked like he was trying very hard not to look awkward.

“These taste amazing sir,” Angus said after a bit, figuring that he should say something and not be rude.

“Course they do,” he said simply, eating another piece before adding, “but thanks.” There really were a lot of different types, some of them had different kinds of fruit and some had chocolate and the mix of flavors should be overwhelmingly sweet but somehow it wasn’t.

“So um, what are we going to do this weekend sir?” Angus asked once he’d managed to finish as much of the food on his plate as he could. There was still about half a pancake left, and he felt a little bad even letting that go to waste. He was pretty sure pancakes didn’t taste great heated up once you put syrup on them though.

“Uh, well let’s see,” Taako said, sounding like the question caught him off guard a little. “What are we going to do... this weekend, hmm, let’s see,” he continued, definitely letting Angus know that he had no plans. “What do kids like to do for fun?” he asked finally.

“I mean, it depends on the kid,” Angus said, which caused Mr. Taako to groan slightly, rolling his eyes.

“Okay, allow me to rephrase that question then. What does the kid I am gonna be responsible with for the next forty-eight hours or whatever like to do for fun?” he asked. Angus hummed, thinking the question over. He actually wanted to be a good guest after all and didn’t want to cause Taako too much trouble, since he really was helping them out last minute and all.

“I like to read, and um, movies are nice? Mystery are my favorite,” he said, and Taako nodded, seeming to accept that answer well enough.

“Alright, we can do movies, that works for sure,” Taako said, still sounding pretty uncertain about all of this. If Angus had to wager a guess, he’d probably never watched a kid before, or at least not on his own. “Uh, do you want to do that now, or what?” Taako asked after a brief pause.

“Sure sir! If you’re not in the mood for one now though I brought some things to entertain myself,” Angus said and Taako shrugged, standing up and grabbing both of their plates. He scooped Angus’s uneaten pancake into a ziplock bag and put it in the fridge before putting both plates into the sink.

“Eh, I could do a movie, for sure,” he said. With that they headed into the living room, and Taako told him to wait for a minute before coming back with a laptop. It seemed like he already had the set up to hook it to his tv, quickly pulling up a list of movies and it coming up on the screen.

Angus watched as Taako flipped over to the ‘mysteries/suspense’ category, and started scanning down the list. After a moment he started frowning some.

“Uh, a lot of these movies seem kinda um, mature? How old are you again?” he asked.

“Ten, but my birthday’s coming up soon,” Angus answered happily. Taako looked even more hesitant at that though, starting to scan through the movies a little faster.

“Okay, okay let’s seeee, something pg, something pg, pg, pg,” Taako said, starting to chat a little under his breath.

“I can watch PG13 movies too if that makes it easier,” Angus offered. Taako gave him a slightly skeptical look at that. Which was fair, but Angus was honestly pretty surprised that Taako had thought to consider movie ratings at all. He guessed he was a school tutor though, he seemed to know the basics about dealing with kids and stuff.

“That feels like something I should run by your dad first pumpkin. Don’t want you having like, nightmares tonight,” he said, and Angus shrugged. And okay, his dad would usually be pretty careful about letting him watch anything too high rated. Usually if it was something Angus really wanted to watch, his dad would watch it first and decide if it was okay or not.

“It’s noon sir, I highly doubt I’ll  _ still _ be scared by tonight, if I get scared at all,” he said. Taako seemed to consider it for a moment before turning back to the list of movies.

“If we can’t find anything I’ll  _ consider _ it, last thing I wanna do is piss off your dad,” he said.

“Why’s that sir?” Angus asked innocently. Taako only briefly glanced over at him out of the corner of his eye before going back to reading movie titles and descriptions. There was definitely a look there like he knew what Angus was doing. Which, that would make figuring out if Taako would be good for his dad a little more difficult, but it was also a point in his favor.

“No sense in making enemies of my favorite pupil’s dad, right?” Taako said, and Angus couldn’t help grinning at that. And then he paused, thinking.

“How many kids do you tutor again?” he asked, letting himself sound as suspicious as he felt.

“This is a part time gig, so they just got me on the one for now,” Taako said, a large grin on his face. That was about what Angus figured, and he rolled his eyes, not actually offended.

“Have you picked a movie yet sir?” he asked instead, changing the subject. It ended up taking a little more bartering, but eventually they ended up on a PG mystery movie that at least Angus hadn’t seen before. The mystery ended up being pretty easy to solve, Angus called it not halfway through the first act, which seemed to impress Taako when it was revealed to be correct.

The important thing was that it managed to kill some time, which is what Angus figured the main goal was. Taako spent most of the time absentmindedly playing on his phone, but even though he was trying to look like he wasn’t paying attention Angus could tell that he was.

“Well, that was a movie,” Taako said once it was over. It wasn’t obvious, but Angus could tell that he still seemed a little stressed and confused about all of this. He was definitely less relaxed than he was during tutoring at least, and way less relaxed than when they saw him at the store.

“It was pretty good, they managed to not make the mystery too obvious,” Angus said, and Taako shot him a look at that.

“You guessed that shit after like fifteen minutes,” he said, and Angus shrugged.

“I’m really good at solving mysteries,” he said, which got a snicker out of Taako. It wasn’t particularly mocking or anything like when some adults did it though.

“Is that it? Sure, makes sense,” he said, his amusement starting to fall away into nervous uncertainty again. It was all masked pretty well with an air of aloofness, but it was pretty obvious that Taako did want this to go well. “So uh, you said you’re like, good to entertain yourself for now? You getting hungry for lunch yet?” he asked.

“Maybe in a little bit? That was a really big breakfast, I’m still full,” he said, and Taako seemed content with that. “And yeah, I can go grab one of the books I brought. Is it okay if I read out here?” he asked, and Taako nodded, waving away the question.

“Yeah sure, doesn’t bother me any,” he said. With that Angus headed back to the guest room he’d been in, ruffled through his bag until he found a book and headed back out. In the time it took him to do that Taako had gotten up and had started doing the dishes from breakfast, so Angus curled back up on the couch.

It was quiet between them for a bit, in a pretty comfortable way. Angus was kind of surprised, but it seemed like Taako was a bit more relaxed as long as Angus had something to do. After some time though Angus spoke up, because his mind really wasn’t on his book.

“It was really nice of you to watch me on such short notice sir,” he said. Taako shrugged, sticking dishes in what looked to be an already pretty stuffed cabinet. Considering Angus remembered several boxes full of kitchen stuff laying about the last time they were here that were no longer around, that made sense.

“Yeah, I’m just great like that, what can I say,” Taako answered easily. Angus knew they were still pretty early in the visit for him to try and push things, especially with someone as smart as Taako. Still, he  _ did _ only have two days.

Also, it was really hard trying to be subtle and not blurt out every question that came to his mind.

“Sir, can I ask you something?” he ended up asking after a moment, having lost all pretense of pretending to read his book at this point. Not that Taako was paying much attention to what he was doing. He was pretty preoccupied trying to get the last bowl he had in his hands to fit in the cabinet.

“Shoot,” he said absently, and Angus figured that was good enough.

“Mr. Taako, do you have intentions with my father?” Angus asked, and maybe that wasn’t the best way to phrase it, but it was the way that happened. The bowl Taako had been precariously trying to fit into the cupboard fell, making a loud crash on the counter. Angus winced, Taako cursing under his breath.

Jumping up from the couch, he went over to the kitchen. “I’m sorry sir, do you want any help?” he asked, but Taako was immediately shooing him back out.

“Nope, no, step your ass back bubala. No kids near broken glass,” Taako insisted. It was fair enough, so Angus stayed back, watching as Taako scrambled around looking for a dust pan. “Fuck it,” he muttered after a moment, picking up the larger pieces and then using a spatula to brush the others into a dish tray before dumping them into the trash. 

Once it was cleaned up the two of them stood there in silence for a moment, before Taako turned and looked at him with an exhausted expression on his face. Angus slowly grinned back nervously.

“So, um, you never answered my question,” he said, and Taako groaned.

“Of course. Well, if you’re gonna just fucking throw it out there like that, no. I’m sure he’s a great dude but Taako ain’t really searching the market at the moment,” he said, which honestly wasn’t the answer Angus had expected. He figured Taako wouldn’t say yes straight out like that, but he didn’t think he’d claim to be completely uninterested either. Mostly he’d been anticipating denial.

“Really? Why not?” he asked, realizing immediately afterwards that that was probably rude. “I mean, it’s none of my business of course,” he added.

“Sure fucking ain’t,” Taako answered, moving past him out of the kitchen. Angus followed after him, and he just went to slump back down on the couch. It didn’t seem like he was going to say anymore than that for a bit, but Angus supposed the quiet got to him. “How old are you again?” he asked, which wasn’t quite the question he expected.

“Ten, almost eleven,” he answered, and Taako seemed to think it over.

“So like, you know what dating  _ is, _ right?” he pressed, and at that Angus rolled his eyes.

“Yes sir, I’m not dumb,” he said, and Taako waved that off.

“Okay okay whatever. You’re a baby I don’t know what you know. If you really gotta have all the juicy details, ain’t got anything to do with your dad, alright? I was dating someone recently and it ended bad, so Taako’s taking some me time,” he explained. Angus’s shoulders slumped at that, suddenly feeling bad for prying.

“Oh, I’m sorry sir, I didn’t know,” he apologized, but at least Taako didn’t seem too upset over it.

“Eh, it’s chill. Better off now, for sure,” he said, and Angus nodded. That was good at least, but it did change things considerably. He definitely didn’t want to try and press things if Mr. Taako was coming out of a bad break up and needed time. His dad might’ve been right about leaving it all be for now.

“So, why you ask? Your dad uuuuh, say anything?” Taako pressed after a moment, clear interest thinly veiled under a mask of indifference. Angus couldn’t help but snort at that.

“Nothing directly sir,” he assured, because it would be bad to say his dad had said something when he’d been pretty clear to Angus about all of this. He wasn’t going to  _ lie _ to make this happen, he was pretty sure that would blow up in his face. That's how it worked in all the books and movies at least. 

“Right, right, yeah no of course,” Taako said quickly. “You want lunch yet?” he asked almost immediately afterwards, an obvious attempt at changing the subject. Angus figured it would be best to let it change for now, since he’d already pressed for more personal stuff than he’d intended.

“Sure, lunch sounds good,” he said. With that Taako got up and started messing around in the kitchen again, and Angus followed to sit at the counter and watch.

Well, he guessed if he didn’t find out anything else this weekend, that was still good enough for now. He had a much clearer understanding of the situation at least, and he could probably safely assume that nothing was going to happen for a while.

Which Angus was honestly fine with. He wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of everything changing so rapidly if they did start dating. It was kind of a relief knowing that both Taako and his dad would want to take things slow, if they happened at all.

Angus was still pretty sure they were going to. It was just nice knowing he’d have some time to adjust. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so didn't quite manage to get a chapter out in march, but the month had been super busy with moving halfway across the country. got some ango and taako probably bonding time tho, which is always fun. i'm starting to get a pretty solid plan of how this fic is gonna go, so hopefully with that i'll be able to update a bit more consistently. 
> 
> as always, thanks for reading and i hope you enjoyed~


End file.
